“You know, there's a big world out there filled with desperate orphans who would gladly swim across an ocean of thumbtacks just to be eclipsed by the long shadow that is cast by my accomplishments.”

“A big city is a big ocean; the one who doesn’t know how to swim finds himself at its bottom!”

“As long as it's a regular day, not too rough to begin with, the ocean is pretty smooth once you make it out past the first set of waves. That's why people are afriad to swim in the ocean. They try to jump over those waves and get slammed down to the bottom and pulled across the sand like a piece of shell. You've got to go throught them, dive under just when they're rising up for you, set your direction, close your eyes, and just swim like hell. Once you get throught that, you'll find there isn't a better place for swimming because it's the ocean and it goes on forever. You don't have to see anyone if you don't want to. If you look out, away from the beach, it's easy to imagine that there's no one else but you in the whole world, you and maybe a couple of sea gulls.”

“I’d race my motorcycle across the ocean just to avoid swimming in the desert. Ladies, I hope this indicates what kind of lover I’d make.”

“You were the living image of the entire Platonic shadow show, an illusion that could fill my emptiness with marvellous, imaginary things as long as, just as long as, the movie lasted, and then all would all vanish.”

“A person's shadow stood for his legacy, his impact on the world. Some people cast hardly any shadow at all. Some cast long, deep shadows that endured for centuries.”