“There is no safer. There’s not even safe, never has been.”

“There’s no debt. There never has been. We are friends.”

“With all the safety mechanisms in place to make cribs safer, still more infants die alone in cribs than in the family bed; yet, there has never been an outcry to ban cribs.”

“There’s not a stone or leaf or life that men won’t put a name to. It gives them a nice safe box to collect things in. They get in the habit of collecting things and end up surprised at the weight they’re carrying. A dream they thought might fit someday, something bright and sweet like a woman, picked up for her shine and somehow never left or at least never forgotten. Or an ambition! There’s a fine item in any man’s bag. A great, glowing ambition. They never fade, never wear even when you’ve outgrown them. Always there to look at and remember and play might-have-been.”

“You could carve out the inside of a brick and hide your money in it for safe keeping. It’s certainly safer than keeping it in the bank!”

“When will we get the chance to be just friends? It's never safe for us, not even in the evening, cuz I've been drinking. Not in the morning, when your shit works. It's always dangerous when everybody's sleeping, and I've been thinking...Can we be alone?”