“...And eventually, he (Charles Manson) testified to an empty court, as Bugliosi had convinced the presiding judge Older, that Manson's hypnotic powers might convince the jury he was innocent.”

“If Dan had ever wanted anything more, then I had killed that by ignoring him at Abbott's. That had been my one chance to confront him not as warring reenactors, but as two people, a girl and a boy, and I had killed it. I am the Charles Manson of relationships.”

“It bothered me in a kind of Charles Manson way to have a brown smear of blood on my wall but I also liked it because every time I looked at it I was reminded that I was, at that very moment, not bleeding from my face. And those are powerful words of hope, really.”

“(Socialist Powers Hapgood)...had become an official in the CIO. There had been some sort of dust-up on a picket line, and he was testifying about it in court, and the judge stops everything and asks him, "Mr. Hapgwood, here you are, you're a graduate of Harvard. why would anyone with your advantages choose the life than you have?" Hapgood answered the judge: "Why, because of the Sermon on the Mount, sir.”

“In his dream, George Stetchkin was in the dock at the Central Criminal Court, accused of the murder of nine million innocent brain cells. The usher was showing the jury the alleged murder weapon, an empty Bison Brand wodka bottle. Then the judge glared at him over the rims of his spectacles and sentenced him to the worst hangover of his life.”

“You breathe too fast to be convincing,' he goaded.'You don't breathe enough to judge me.”