“You know that feeling you get when your leg falls asleep? Well, I suddenly had that feeling in my spine. Like termites were chewing through the marrow in my backbone.”

“There was never anything wrong with my life. Perhaps that was the problem... The crack in my life was the fact that I had everything I wanted, or could ever want—and when you have it all, boredom grows like a fungus, coating everything you own and everything you feel.”

“You...you lost your faith?""No...just my convictions. I still very much believe in God- just not a god who condones human tithing." Lev begins to feel himself choking up with an unexpected flood of feeling, all the emotions that had been building up throughout their talk- throughout the weeks- arriving all at once like a sonic boom."I never knew there was a choice.”

“But sometimes you get a career and then you suddenly realize you don't have a life. Or if you stay at home with your family, you suddenly realize that your life is actually everyone else's life, not your own. Either way, when you got all your eggs in one basket, the basket gets heavy. Maybe the eggs start to break.”

“...And perhaps you can sense, in some small twisting loop of your gut, the convergence of the wrong, of the right, and of the woefully misguided. If you do, then pay sharp attention to the moment you wake, and the moment you fall asleep...For maybe then you will know, without a shadow of a doubt, which is which.”

“You know," he said, his voice making me feel cold in spite of the heat, "this city can get ahold of you and pull you back no matter how hard you try to climb out. Like a grave.”

“[Dad] So your intentions were good. That's what matters.[Anthony] But isn't, like, the road to hell paved with good intentions?Yeah, well, so's the road to heaven. And if you spend too much time thinking about where those good intentions are taking you, you know where you end up?Jersey?I was thinking 'nowhere,' but you get the point.”