“I forced myself to stay put and keep looking - impatient assholes would make a leap, letting adrenaline and desperation guide them, but I was fucking ancient and I knew better. It was bitter, but I fucking knew better about just about everything.”

“I decided to irritate him, on the premise that it couldn't make my situation any worse.”

“I didn't want to kill her; she was just doing her job. But she was standing between me and the rest of my miserable life, so she was going to have to take a bullet.”

“I am not shy about admitting my modest talents. For example, I am happy to admit that I am better than average at clever remarks, and I also have a flair for getting people to like me. But to be perfectly fair to myself, I am ever-ready to confess my shortcomings, too, and a quick round of soul-searching forced me to admit that I had never been any good at all at breathing water. As I hung there from the seat belt, dazed and watching the water pour in and swirl around my head, this began to seem like a very large character flaw.”

“I know it'll change, and I know that is has changed. But I still think it's a very satisfying medium, to put together a collection of songs and let them all live together, and hopefully talk to each other and hopefully make some sense out of why theyr're there. Just like we do.”

“Hey!" he shouted. "This is my fucking Lake of Death. I have complete and utter exclusive rights to sailing this lake. Get the fuck off my lake!”

“I watched him as he lay there, taking the needle without flinching and knowing that even the relief it brought was temporary, that his end was coming and he could not stop it—and knowing, too, that he was not afraid, and that he would do this the right way, as he had done everything else in his life the right way. And I knew this, too: Harry understood me. No one else ever had, and no one else ever would, through all time in all the world. Only Harry. The only reason I ever thought about being human was to be more like him.”