“But no one knows anything about you, and Washington keeps telling everyone you are what you say you are. That's impossible. No one here is what they say they are.”

“We who live in the civilized world are accustomed to a background roar that never goes away. It is the pounding of our machinery in the chest of the city, and it is the incessant blood of traffic rushing through the streets.Here the silence never goes away. It is the foundation of all sound. One can hear into the jungle through the silence much farther than one can see into it through the trees.”

“There before me, staring back from bottomless blackness, was I without my self. On all fours, I stared into my eyes. I came closer, and we kissed. Who knows me best? I am only water.”

“She was the dawn and the sea and the sky, and every color ever seen by every sailor ever sailed.McBeth Johnson, the day he fell in love.”

“People say to write about what you know. I'm here to tell you, no one wants to read that, cos you don't know anything. So write about something you don't know. And don't be scared, ever.”

“We can't define anything precisely. If we attempt to, we get into the paralysis of thought that comes to philosophers... one saying to the other: you don't know what you are talking about! The second one says: what do you mean by talking? What do you mean by you? What do you mean by know?”

“That's what they all say. Everyone says they want to know you, but they don't. They want to know the nice things, the pretty things. No one wants to know the ugly parts, the parts that keep you up at night. They say they're okay with it, but then they drift away and you never see them again. I've seen it happen way too many times.”