“Back on the ferry, I sip some vodka on the rocks and have a chat with God.Me: (desperately) What the *&%$# am I going to do?God:Me: (surprised) Really? After all those Sundays of being a back up singer for Jesus, you got nothing to say?God:Me: (humbly) Help me out here.”

“The urge to change my mind and not go at all is enormous. I’m absolutely terrified to leave on that boat. But, if I don’t go, there’ll be one more broken person in this world who gave up a dream to sit in a chair, pick up the TV remote and shrink.”

“I am the Captain of my own life.”

“The ocean swells around us. Sometimes, we are in a bowl of water and sometimes on the top of the lip. The horizon curves.We are sitting on top of the world.In theory, anyone is on the top of their world at every moment, given that the Earth is truly round. But, it’s hard to see that in a subway under New York City and completely obvious out here.”

“The difference between bitter and better is I.”

“After some hours, the dogs, exhausted by running round, almost dead, their tongues hanging out, set upon one another and, not knowing what they are doing, tear one another into thousands of pieces with incredible rapidity. Yet they do not do this out of cruelty. One day, a glazed look in her eyes, my mother said to me: ‘When you are in bed and you hear the barking of the dogs in the countryside, hide beneath your blanket, but do not deride what they do: they have an insatiable thirst for the infinite, as you, and I, and all other pale, long-faced human beings do.’ Since that time, I have respected the dead woman’s wish. Like those dogs I feel the need for the infinite. I cannot, cannot satisfy this need. I am the son of a man and a woman, from what I have been told. This astonishes me…I believed I was something more.”

“That is why Bias jested with those who were going through the perils of a great storm with him and calling on the gods for help: "Shut up," he said, "so that they do not realize that you are here with me.”