“had no excuses for the things that we'd done, we were brave, we crazy, we were mostly young.”

“Possible, impossible. What could be done? We thought we had such problems. How were we to know we were happy?”

“We were young, and we had no need for prophecies. Just living was itself an act of prophecy.”

“We were failures, all of us. We told him we had our reasons for the way things had turned out, but he didn't want to hear it. Told us that nothing consumed a man's soul more than the easy excuse.”

“Alan had never been stabbed or shot or punctured or broken. Were scars the best evidence of living? If we have not survived something, and thus were certain that we'd lived, we could scar ourselves, couldn't we?”

“We'd traveled, we'd been to lots of parties, lots of movies and concerts, we'd slept in. We'd done all those things that people with children seem to miss so passionately. We didn't want those things anymore. We wanted a baby.”