“…not that it’s any of your damn business, but my entire life has just been assfucked. I’ve been left a shithole bar by a father that I didn’t even know I had, and if that isn’t enough, I had to drop out of college because the bar came with a kid too.”

“I think it’s important to have a good hard failure when you're young. I learned a lot out of that. Because it makes you kind of aware of what can happen to you. Because of it I’ve never had any fear in my whole life when we’ve been near collapse and all of that. I’ve never been afraid. I’ve never had the feeling I couldn’t walk out and get a job doing something.”

“Even when I ran my bar I followed the same policy. A lot of customers came to the bar. If one in ten enjoyed the place and said he'd come again, that was enough. If one out of ten was a repeat customer, then the business would survive. To put it another way, it didn't matter if nine out of ten didn't like my bar. This realization lifted a weight off my shoulders. Still, I had to make sure that the one person who did like the place really liked it. In order to make sure he did, I had to make my philosophy and stance clear-cut, and patiently maintain that stance no matter what. This is what I learned through running a business.”

“Since I’ve been on my own, I’ve been eating a lot of popcorn, cereal, instant noodles, and snack bars. I have a hot plate in my bedroom, a microwave, and a small fridge. That’s the kind of kitchen I know how to get around in.”

“I knew that I had been partially right in the storeroom above the bar on Christmas Day. Whoever I had become had to die.”

“He lifted my foot and placed a kiss on the tip of my big toe. That toe had never been kissed in its life. I wondered if it was smart enough to know what had just happened. Would it lord it over the other toes now that it had been singled out and kissed by Frank Wells, or was it just a fucking toe and didn’t know what the hell was going on? Like me.”