“And I go out of Father's house and I walk down the street, and it is very quiet even thought it is the middle of the day and I can't hear any noise except birds singing and wind and sometimes buildings falling down in the distance, and if I stand very close to traffic lights I can hear a little click as the colors change.”

“I'm over the hill for come-on lines. On a quiet day, I can hear my liver rotting. For exercise, I fall down.”

“The sky was just beginning to light up a little, the quiet time when all the air is clean and you can hear birds, even in the middle of New York City, the time of day you never see except by accident, and you always tell yourself, "I must get up and appreciate this time of day once in awhile," and then you never do. Don't ask me why.”

“I pounded through the houses, staggering down the hallways, falling down the steps. It was a hot streaky dawn full of insecticides, exhaust, flowers that could make you sick or fall in love. My battered Impala was still parked there on the side of the road and I wanted to lie down on the shredded seats and sleep and sleep.But I thought of the bones; I could hear them singing. They needed me to write their song.”

“...he said, with sort of a little derisive smile, "How can you walk down the street with all this stuff going on inside you?" I said, "I don't know how you can walk down the street with nothing going on inside you.”

“I can hear you, the rest of the world can hear you and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”