“Tell me this is the future,I won’t believe you.Tell me I’m living,I won’t believe you.”

“The God I believe in believes in me and won’t silence my heart or others based on a paycheck at the end of the day.”

“You don’t have to tell me why, if you tell me why you won’t tell me why. Or at the very least tell me why you won’t tell me why you won’t tell me why.”

“When I’m there, Rube’s eyes fire into mine. Make sure you get up, they tell me, and I nod, then jump up. The jacket’s off. My skin’s warm. My wolfish hair sticks up as always, nice and thick. I’m ready now. I’m ready to keep standing up, no matter what, I’m ready to believe that I welcome the pain and that I want it so much that I will look for it. I will seek it out. I’ll run to it and throw myself into it. I’ll stand in front of it in blind terror and let it beat me down and down till my courage hangs off me in rags. Then it will dismantle me and stand me up naked, beat me some more and my slaughter-blood will fly from my mouth and the pain will drink it, feel it, steal it and conceal it in the pockets of its guts and it will taste me. It will just keep standing me up, and I won’t let it know. I won’t tell it that I feel it. I won’t give it the satisfaction. No, the pain will have to kill me.”

“You won’t let me buy any clothes. Now you won’t let me buy a road map, either!I need to spend some money or I’m going to go crazy!”

“Believe, like I do . . .You won’t hurt anybody you don’t mean to. You’re the motherfucking Orchid. Now go kick some ass for me, Pen.”