“..he began drinking heavily and lived in a way which a friend described as making sense "only if he had no expectations of being alive much beyond Thursday".”

“Rick feels almost the way he used to halfway through his third drink, his favorite moment, the way he wishes all moments in life could feel: heightened with the sense that anything could happen at any moment--that being alive is important, because just when you least expect it, you might receive exactly what you least expect.”

“He was moving through a new order of creation, of which few men had ever dreamed. Beyond the realms of sea and land and air and space lay the realms of fire, which he alone had been privileged to glimpse. It was too much to expect that he would also understand.”

“Once you lose that sense of wonder at being alive, you're pretty much on the way out...”

“He makes her feel halfway normal by being so much further beyond her.”

“If he give me credit for being a plodder he will describe me justly. Anything beyond that will be too much. I can plod. I can persevere in any definite pursuit. To this I owe everything.”