“In a cruel and imperfect world, she was living proof that God could still create perfection.”

“There you go. Perfect. And can you still throw up at will like you could in sixth grade? That would be good.”

“The Vieux Carre is most beautiful in the early evening, when the subtle colors of a sunset provide a perfect complement to the concrete, creating a harmony of architecture on each street... Thoughts also have a softer tone during these evenings. So, I chose this time to walk and think after a personally oppressive day. A day when my mind needed the relief of a pastel cityscape.”

“...a row of tables manned by seated, serious women. Each woman looked like she could be someone's least-favourite aunt.”

“Why did I always end up loving the person who hurt me the most? Why was love so cruel?”

“Before there was Cocaine or vodka or sex or any of that, there was fantasy. There was escape. That was my first addiction. I remember being a little kid and imagining everything different, myself different. How did I get the idea in my head at age eight that everything was better somewhere else? Why would a child have a hole inside that can't get full no matter what she does? The real world could never make me happy, so I retreated to the world inside my head. And as I grew, as the real world proved itself more and more painful, the fantasy world expanded.”

“In her own fumbling way, she’d reminded him he was just a man, fallible, needful, a member of the supremely imperfect human race…and shamefully undeserving of what she had to offer. Looking at Billie, touching her, tasting her, had filled him with a wanting fiercer than any he’d known. For the first time, he was faced with something he couldn’t truly have, because of what he’d become.”