“In my dreams of this city I am always lost.”

“My hands are out of practice, my eyes disused. Most of what I do is drawing, because the preparation of the surface, the laborious underpainting and detailed concentration... are too much for me. I have lost confidence: perhaps all I will ever be is what I am now.”

“The night is mine, my own time, to do with it as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as I don't move. As long as I lie still. The difference between lie and lay. Lay is always passive.”

“I am afraid of falling into hopeless despair, over my wasted life, and I am still not sure how it happened.”

“I am not my childhood,' Snowman says out loud.”

“I believe that everyone else my age is an adult whereas I am merely in disguise.”

“There I am, in the Grade Six class picture, smiling broadly. Happy as a clam, is what my mother says for happy. I am happy as a clam: hardshelled, firmly closed.”