“I tossed my shoulders and swaggered away, whistling with pleasure. In the gutter I saw a long cigaret butt. I picked it up without shame, lit it as I stood with one foot in the gutter, puffed it and exhaled toward the stars. I was an American, and goddamn proud of it.”

“I need to know that wherever I end up, in the stars or in the gutter, you’re along for the ride.”

“Love is not a thing you can pick up and throw into the gutter and pick up again as the fancy takes you. I am a person, very unfortunately for you, with a quite peculiar dread of thrusting myself or my affections on any one, of in any way outstaying my welcome. The man I would love would be the man I could trust to love me for ever. I do not trust you. I did outstay my welcome once. I did get thrown into the gutter, and came near drowning in that sordid place.”

“I compensate for my debauchery by being brilliant at it. I make sacrifices for it by waking up in a gutter covered in the fruits of my genius.”

“I came from the gutter and i rose into a flower”

“I tried pulling myself out of the gutter once,” Natty snickered. “I got bored.”