“A thousand miles seems pretty far, but they've got planes and trains and cars. I'd walk to you if I had no other way. Our friends will all make fun of us and we'll just laugh along because we know that none of them have felt this way.”

“Beyond customs and norms and wildly variant beliefs, we all generally laugh, cry, and make our way along the dusty road of life in pretty much the same way.”

“Quiet, everybody! Quiet! Well, Sir, we've been getting along pretty good for quite a while now, and we're certainly much obliged. Remember, all we ask is to just go along and be happy in our own sort of way. Of course we want to keep our health but as far as anything else is concerned, we'll leave it to You. Thank You.”

“We're all on our own, aren't we? That's what it boils down to. We come into this world on our own- in Hawaii, as I did, or New York, or China, or Africa or Montana- and we leave it in the same way, on our own, wherever we happen to be at the time- in a plane, in our beds, in a car, in a space shuttle, or in a field of flowers. And between those times, we try to connect along the way with others who are also on their own. If we're lucky, we have a mother who reads to us. We have a teacher or two along the way who make us feel special. We have dogs who do the stupid dog tricks we teach them and who lie on our bed when we're not looking, because it smells like us, and so we pretend not to notice the paw prints on the bedspread. We have friends who lend us their favorite books. Maybe we have children, and grandchildren, and funny mailmen and eccentric great-aunts, and uncles who can pull pennies out of their ears. All of them teach us stuff. They teach us about combustion engines and the major products of Bolivia, and what poems are not boring, and how to be kind to each other, and how to laugh, and when the vigil is in our hands, and when we have to make the best of things even though it's hard sometimes. Looking back together, telling our stories to one another, we learn how to be on our own.”

“It was just that he was fun in such an exhausting way because, being in advertising, he always wanted you to know how much fun he was having and where he had got his jacket from.”

“Look, sometimes it’s OK with girls like this, they wanna have fun, and sometimes it’s not because they've got a broken wing and they’re hurt and they’re an easy target. In this case, this particular case, I think that wing is being fixed, my friend, and you gotta make sure that it’s mended and you’re getting in the way of that right now, okay, because she’s sensitive and she’s smart, she’s artistic. This is a great girl, you gotta be respectful to that. Come on, let me walk you to your car, you’re a better guy than this.”