“This is, I believe, what happens when people take their own lives. They're not killing themselves, they're killing the world. Either to spare it pain or to cause it some, depending.”

“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.”

“It's different to miss somebody when they're still alive. When they die it's like, 'Okay, I'm sad.' You're supposed to be sad. When they just go away, when they disappear, that's a different thing.”

“I kept getting high to kill my shame at the fact that I kept getting high.”

“Can you understand this? Shooting dope is all about getting warm and fuzzy. Dependably so. But the Daddy-rush... Forget about it! I've never felt anything so terrifying! It's so real, even the pleasure can break your heart. Which, in the grand scheme of things, is what separates shooting smack from loving your little girl. Heroin may kill you, but it'll never break your heart. Not like a child.”

“The second time I took acid, I watched myself in the mirror for nine hours. What I realized, when I stared, was that my face looked exactly the same when I cried as when I laughed. After awhile I couldn't tell which I was doing. Relief was just pain inside out.”

“Mostly what I remember is the way things looked sometimes after I'd push down the plunger, sometimes when I got so high so fast I couldn't even take the needle out of my arm. I just sat back, head lolling on my shoulders like a balloon on a string, and everything, walls, carpet, couch cushion, my own hands, broke down to swirling molecules, reassembled as a million other things, and danced before my eyes before arranging themselves once more as reality. The endless cycle, that dance of molecules and their return to something solid, left me as drained as if I'd flown around the sun with veins for wings.”