“Nately had a bad start. He came from a good family.”

“And when someone grows up knowing so little of what real love feels like, whether from family, or friends, or the love of a companion, that person starts to believe that they weren’t meant to be loved, that good things will never happen to them. They start to believe that whenever something good does happen, it’s inevitable that something bad will come along to replace it.”

“I never met an addict who came from a nice home . I've met addicts that came from families that had money and nice houses. But never from a nice home.”

“And Nate? You kiss like a slobbering dog, you have bad breath, and you wouldn't know how to punch the right buttons on a girl if we came with manuals. Happy Thanksgiving, Jackass.”

“When a woman once asked Joe how he could come from such a magnificent home and such a good family and still become a gangster, Joe's answer was two-pronged: (a) he wasn't a gangster, he was an outlaw; (b) he came from a magnificent house not a magnificent home.”

“Man is physically as well as metaphysically a thing of shreds and patches, borrowed unequally from good and bad ancestors, and a misfit from the start.”