“I'll never understand how a man can live his life With his finger on the self-destruct button, Holding it there day after day, Blinded by an obsession to press it But lacking the conviction to do even that.”

“How can both Nics, the loving and considerate and generous one, and the self-obsessed and self-destructive one, be the same person?”

“As he presses me against the car and his fingers tangle in my hair, I find myself hoping-and fearing-that I'll never be the object of such a love, one that could bring a man to his knees and never let him stand again.”

“Perry," he said quietly, his fingers trailing down the side of my face, "you'll never have to save my life. You gave me life. I never lived a single day until the first day I met you.”

“Chuck Parson did not participate in organized sports, because to do so would distract from his larger goal of his life: to one day be convicted of murder”

“Haven't you ever observed how we live in an age of self-persecution? What a lot of things there are one might do that one doesn't - and yet why, God only knows. Work has become so tremendously important to-day, because so many have none, I suppose, that it kills everything else... Work, work, work . . . an abominable obsession - and always under the illusion it will be different later. And it never is different. Queer, isn't it, that anyone should do that with his life?”