“Nothing ever turns me on so much in a woman as unhappiness.”

“As far as I could tell, life was nothing but a forced march down a mined highway. Even if you did everything you were supposed to do, sooner of later if was your turn to step on a claymore.”

“Not doing something crude right off is about as close as a guy like me ever gets to class.”

“Booze has a different effect when you're, like, ten. Its doesn't round out the edges so much as wash you right out of the picture.”

“I have to admit, I wasn't close to my old man when he was alive. He was hardly ever home. But now that he was gone, and I was back in Pittsburgh, I thought about him all the time. I felt closer to the guy since he'd been buried than I ever did when he was walking around above ground. I realized how much I loved him.”

“Half the reason I turned into a writer is you didn't have to show up anywhere. You could work naked.”

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