“All around, grown men were getting out of cars and shoving at each other like fifteen-year-olds, the bunch of juiced-up, armchair quarterbacks ready to peanut-gallery it up: The closest they were going to get to the octagon was standing on the outside of the chicken wire looking in.”

“Why did so many grown-ups want to be young, she wondered, when it took so long to grow old? It was like going on a million-mile road trip then wanting to turn around without getting out of the car.”

“You get all squeezed up inside, like the days were carved in stone. You get all wired up inside, and it's bad to be alone. You can go out, you can take a ride. And when you get out on your own,You get all smoothed out inside. And it's good to be alone.”

“We were getting a divorce. But not from each other. Then we were going to get married. But not to each other.”

“Out on the road outside Cheyenne Wells a great argument developed between Pomeray and Old Bull as to whether they were going to buy a little whiskey or lot of wine, one being a wino, the other an alcoholic. Not having eaten for a long time, feverish, they leaped out of the car and started making brawling gestures at each other which were supposed to represent a fistfight between two men...and the next moment they were embracing each other, old Pomeray tearfully, Old Bull raising his eyes with lonely sarcasm at the huge and indefatigable heavens above Colorado...because everybody was in a hole during the Depression, and felt it”

“Go to Old Delhi,and look at the way they keep chickens there in the market. Hundred of pale hens and brightly colored roosters, stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages. They see the organs of their brothers lying around them.They know they are next, yet they cannot rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop. The very same thing is done with humans in this country.”