“John was the ne'er-do-well father, Paul was the hardworking mother trying to keep everything together. George was a slightly surly teenager, and Ringo was this happy-go-lucky young kid with his model airplane. That's really how it was.”

“And David saw himself reflected in the Woodsman's eyes, and there he was no longer old but a young man, for a man is always his father's child no matter how old he is or how long they have been apart.”

“Dylan's friend Linus Millberg appears out of the crowd with a cup of beer and shouts, 'Dorothy is John Lennon, the Scarecrow is Paul McCartney, the Tin Woodman is George Harrison, the Lion's Ringo.''Star Trek,' commands Dylan over the lousy twangy country CB's is playing between sets.'Easy,' Linus shouts back. "Kirk's John, Spock's Paul, Bones is George, Scotty is Ringo. Or Chekov, after the first season. Doesn't matter, it's like a Scotty-Chekov-combination Ringo. Spare parts are always surplus Georges or Ringos.''But isn't Spock-lacks-a-heart and McCoy-lacks-a-brain like Woodman and Scarecrow? So Dorothy's Kirk?''You don't get it. That's just a superficial coincidence. The Beatle thing is an archetype, it's like the basic human formation. Everything naturally forms into a Beatles, people can't help it.''Say the types again.''Responsible-parent genius-parent genius-child clown-child.''Okay, do Star Wars.''Luke Paul, Han Solo John, Chewbacca George, the robots Ringo.''Tonight Show.''Uh, Johnny Carson Paul, the guest John, Ed McMahon Ringo, whatisname George.''Doc Severinson.''Yeah, right. See, everything revolves around John, even Paul. That's why John's the guest.''And Severinson's quiet but talented, like a Wookie.''You begin to understand.”

“That evening, as he got ready for bed, he heard his mother and father talking in their bedroom, and that was how he learned that Billy had been naked when he was discovered and that the police had arrested a man who lived with his mother in a clean little house not far from where the body was found. David knew from the way they were talking that something very bad had happened to Billy before he died, something to do with the man from the clean little house....Now, in another bedroom, he thought of Jonathan Tulvey and Anna, and wondered if a man from a clean little house, a man who lived with his mother and kept sweets in his pockets, had made them go down with him to the railroad tracks.And there, in the darkness, he had played with them, in his way.”

“The nature of compassion isn't coming to terms with your own suffering and applying it to others: It's knowing that other folks around you suffer and, no matter what happens to you, no matter how lucky or unlucky you are, they keep suffering. And if you can do something about that, then you do it, and you do it without whining or waving your own fuckin' cross for the world to see. You do it because it's the right thing to do.”

“Once upon a time – for that is how all stories should begin – there was a boy who lost his mother.”

“What do you do, go around trying everything once?' he asked.'Sometimes twice,...”