“Just what the doctor ordered, he says. A bottle of lemonade, a hard-boiled egg, and Thou.”

“Home is where the heart is, I thought now, gathering myself together in Betty's Luncheonette. I had no heart any more, it had been broken; or not broken, it simply wasn't there any more. It had been scooped neatly out of me like the yolk from a hard-boiled egg, leaving the rest of me bloodless and congealed and hollow.I'm heartless, I thought. Therefore I'm homeless.”

“Yesterday I went to the doctor, to see about these dizzy spells. He told me that I have developed what used to be called a heart, as if healthy people didn’t have one. It seems I will not after all keep on living forever, merely getting smaller and greyer and dustier, like Sibyl in her bottle. Having long ago whispered I want to die, I now realise that this wish will indeed be fulfilled, and sooner rather than later. No matter that I’ve changed my mind.”

“What breaks in daybreak? Is it the night? Is it the sun, cracked in two by the horizon like an egg, spilling out light?”

“Happy as a clam, is what my mother says for happy. I am happy as a clam: hard-shelled, firmly closed.”

“Which does a man prefer? Bacon and eggs, or worship? Sometimes one, sometimes the other, depending how hungry he is.”

“In front of us, to the right, is the store where we order dresses. Some people call them habits, a good word for them. Habits are hard to break. ”