“I want to play a game of Solitaire—with my clone.”

“The more you pursue distractions, the less effective any particular distraction is, and so I'd had to up various dosages, until, before I knew it, I was checking my e-mail every ten minutes, and my plugs of tobacco were getting ever larger, and my two drinks a night had worsened to four, and I'd achieved such deep mastery of computer solitaire that my goal was no longer to win a game but to win two or more games in a row--a kind of meta-solitaire whose fascination consisted not in playing the cards but in surfing the streaks of wins and losses.”

“I don't play solitaire. It seems so lonely, somehow.”

“As I look back, I see that life is like a game of solitaire and every once in a while there is a move.”

“You want to play video games twenty-four hours a day?""Or watch. I just want to not be me. Whether it's sleeping or playing video games or riding my bike or studying. Giving my brain up. That's what's important.”

“What model reader did I want as i was writing? An accomplice, to be sure, one who would play my game.”