“I am locked in a very expensive suitold elegant and enduringOnly my hair has been able to get freebut someone has been leavingtheir dandruff in itNow I will tell youall there is to know about optimismEach day in hub cap mirrorin soup reflectionin other people's spectaclesI check my hairfor an army of alpinistsfor Indian rope trick mastersfor tangled aviatorsfor dove and albatrossfor insect suicidesfor abominable snowmenI check my hairfor aerialists of every kindDedicated as an automatic elevatorI comb my hair for possibilitiesI stick my neck outI lean illegally from locomotive windowsand only for the barberdo I wear a hat”

“If I were a flowerpot, I would've checked my hair.~Carter Kane”

“This woman has been mine, and she will be mine' he said, in tones so definite I thought about checking my rear end for a brand”

“The reasaon I'm shy of objects is because I like them. I transfer the thoughts that are against me onto them. Then these thoughts go away, unless I talk about them - just like my wariness of people. Maybe it all collects in your hair.After I separated from my husband, in the quiet days when no one was shouting at me anymore, I started noticing other people's wariness of strangers. I saw how they combed their hair in public. In the factory, in the city, in the streets, and trams, buses, and trains, while waiting in front of a counter or standing in a line for milk and bread. People comb their hair at the movies before the light goes out, and even in the cemetery. While they're parting their hair you can see their wariness of others collecting in their combs. But they can't comb it out completely if they go on talking about it. The fear of strangers sticks to the comb and makes it greasy. People who talk about it can't get rid of their fear of strangers; their combs are always clean.”

“When I die, nieces, I want to be cremated, my ashes taken up in a bush plane and sprinkled onto the people in town below. Let them think my body is snowflakes, sticking in their hair and on their shoulders like dandruff.”

“After my head has been chopped off, will I still be able to hear, at least for a moment, the sound of my own blood gushing from my neck? That would be the pleasure to end all pleasures.”