“On the boardwalk the arcade jukebox plays all night surrounded by teenagers--sometimes twenty bodies deep, bare-skinned and full of energy for the music, for one another, for life, for the little bit of freedom they taste in the salt air and their skin. My father finds his place in this crowd. They are a force together. They don't do drugs. They don't drink. But they do music, and their power comes from their numbers and the thrill of being young on the beach at night.”

“He invaded my consciousness in the same way the ocean washes up on the beach, with sweeping tides of longing and regret, and with such power and raw force, I often woke with the taste of salt from my tears clinging to my skin." Joanna about Ben”

“If one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk.”

“People think alcoholics are violent. They don't hold down jobs or they're out drinking every night. No offense to the people who believe that, but they don't know jack. Sometime, people do it to DEAL. Because fate sat down and decided, 'Hey, let's see how much shit we can throw at this person before they break.' Before all the skinned knees and bruised limbs keep them from getting up after one last fall.”

“He likes a day in the studio to end, he says, "when my knees are all skinned up and my pants are wet and my hair's off to one side and I feel like I've been in the foxhole all day. I don't think comfort is good for music. It's good to come out with skinned knuckles after wrestling with something you can't see. I like it when you come home at the end of the day from recording and someone says, "What happened to your hand?" And you don't even know. When you're in that place, you can dance on a broken ankle.”

“...the thrill of being surrounded by something wondrous and fantastical, only magnified and focused directly at her. The feel of his skin against hers reverberates across her entire body, though his fingers remain entwined in hers.”