“The biggest truth to face now – what is probably making me unfunny now for the remainder of my life – is that I don't think people give a damn whether the planet goes or not. It seems to me as if everyone is living as members of Alcoholics Anonymous do, day by day. And a few more days will be enough. I know of very few people who are dreaming of a world for their grandchildren.”

“I don't have much time for stories," Vin said."Seems that fewer and fewer people do, these days." A canopy kept off the ash, but he seemed unconcerned about the mists. "It makes me wonder what is so alluring about the real world that gives them all such a fetish for it. It's not a very nice place these days.”

“The best day of my life happened when I was five and almost died at Disney World. I'm sixteen now, so you can imagine that's left me with quite a few days of major suckage.”

“But day after day of depression, the kind that doesn’t seem to merit carting me off to a hospital but allows me to sit here on this stoop in summer camp as if I were normal, day after day wearing down everybody who gets near me. My behavior seems, somehow, not acute enough for them to know what to do with me, though I’m just enough of a mess to be driving everyone around me crazy.”

“I know that as a very young child, I was afraid of death. Many children become aware of the notion of death early and it can be a very troubling thing. We're all in this continuum: I'm this age now, and if I live long enough I'll be that age. I was 20 once, I was 10, I was 4. People who are 20 now will be 50 one day. They don't know that! They know it in the abstract, but they don't know it. I'd like them to know it, because I think it gives you compassion.”

“If I've made any "progress" it's that now I know I'll be an alcoholic till the day I die, and that is both my biggest cross and my greatest blessing.”