“It was like a religious conversion for me. In fact, it’s kind of like sex—one of those things that everyone thinks they know all about and they tell you how great it is, but which is actually pretty uninspiring until you have it one time the way nature intended it to be.”

“You know how you can think you know someone or think you know them but maybe you only know them one way?" He sneaks a glance at me and I notice that his cheeks are red in the moonlight. "Maybe you know someone as your little sister's friend," he says. "And then maybe something shifts. Maybe one day you hear them say something unexpected. Or hear the way they laugh and then suddenly you see them all over again. Like this time it's different. This time maybe you see them as ..." He pauses. "Beautiful," he finishes. Catcher leans in closer. "Wonderful and funny.”

“I’m sick of everyone thinking I’m Miss Goody Two-shoes, with my perfect grades, and days of the week panties. You know what? I have my Wednesdays on today—it’s Saturday—and that’s a pretty sad way of rebelling, huh?”

“His expression I remember from the first time I met him. Open, direct. But no longer anonymous. I know certain telling details now. Like he can't stand his brother and he gets one haircut a year. He likes Raymond Chandler and John Irving, Wallce Stegner and Joan Didion. That he loves the blues and songs that tell stories. Riding the ferries just to be on water. His favorite flavor is caramel.”

“Why the hell didn't we just stay friends? That felt reasonably good. We had fun. I could tell him anything. Of course, he never told me very much about himself, but it didn't matter as much then. Now look at us. Throw some sex into the mix and it's like putting too much yeast in bread. It's all very fizzy and light and wonderful, but then is rises too high and can't support it's own weight and the whole thing falls flat.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Treston said. “I know where I work, I know what I do to make a living, and I know it’s not the most respectable place in Vegas. But frankly, Chad, if you don’t mind my saying so, I think you have a lot to learn about good manners.” Chad blinked. “What do you mean?” Treston reached for his wine glass, finished off what was left to wash down the last forkful of chewy escargot, and said, “All I’m saying is you haven’t stopped harping about that blond, and I have to tell you it’s getting a little tired now. Seriously, man. It’s a little insulting, too.” He leaned forward, looked into Chad’s eyes, and held his hand. “Look, I know how hard it is for selfish men like you to understand empathy. Lord knows I’ve been with enough of them.”

“There's some instinctive attraction that draws you, as a writer, to your subject. And the attraction usually has to do with some primal personal thing that, of course, you have no idea about. In the end, the piece always comes down to the one or two sentences you struggle over. The sentences where you try to say explicitly what it is that the two of you, subject and writer, have in common. Those are the sentences that you just bang your head against the wall over until you get them right. It's very hard to make that distillation but that is actually what your job is. Without trying to pin the person like a butterfly to the wall, to sum it up. If I can do that, then I feel satisfied. To give the subject a reality in the form of a sentence that is like a piece of rock crystal or a prism.”