“At 17, all I wanted was to be a famous junky. Like all my heroes.”

“The thing is, all my heroes were junkies. Lenny Bruce, Keith Richards, William Burroughs, Miles Davis, Hubert Selby, Jr... These guys were cool. They were committed. They would not have been caught dead doing an ALF episode.”

“Just because I'd kicked junk, after all, did not mean I'd kicked being a junkie. And junkies lie. It's their primary addition.”

“Being a junkie, when you broke it down, was nothing more than a crazed day job.”

“I'm so dopesick, my tears taste like urine. It's as if the air itself were made of broken glass. I try to stop twitching. To stay still, to stop my very breath, let the pain stay inside. The slightest movement grinds tiny shards into my pores. Breathing is like gulping from a bag of claws. I want to die. Want to pass out. Want to stop...this...fucking...feeling.”

“I know it sounds lame, but I have to dig the way you think, and I have to feel you get me. My whole fucking life, I pretended I could relate to chicks so I could get into their pants. Then once I got in, all I wanted was out again.”

“Sometimes, it's like you know what people think: You know what they're thinking, and you know it's wrong. All you want to do if change their mind, but you can't.”