“I'll tell you about it because I am here and you are distant.”

“For the rest of my life I'll be thinking about that hamburger. I'll be sitting there at the counter, holding it in my hands with tears streaming down my cheeks. The waitress will be looking away because she doesn't like to see kids crying when they are eating hamburgers...”

“My Name“I guess you are kind of curious as to who I am, but I am one of those who do not have a regular name. My name depends on you. Just call me whatever is in your mind.If you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago: Somebody asked you a question and you did not know the answer.That is my name.Perhaps it was raining very hard.That is my name.Or somebody wanted you to do something. You did it. Then they told you what you did was wrong—“Sorry for the mistake,”—and you had to do something else.That is my name.Perhaps it was a game you played when you were a child or something that came idly into your mind when you were old and sitting in a chair near the window.That is my name.Or you walked someplace. There were flowers all around.That is my name.Perhaps you stared into a river. There as something near you who loved you. They were about to touch you. You could feel this before it happened. Then it happened.That is my name.”

“If you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago:Somebody asked you a question and you did not know the answer.That is my name.”

“The voyage from San Francisco to Hawaii had been the most terrifying experience Greer and Cameron had ever gone through, even more terrible than the time they shot a deputy sheriff in Idaho ten times and he wouldn't die and Greer finallyhad to say to the deputy sheriff,"Please die because we don't want toshoot you again". And the deputy sheriff had said, "Ok, I'll die, but don't shoot me again"."We won't shoot you again", Cameron had said."Ok, I'm dead", and he was.”

“Congratulations," I said. "It's so wonderful to write a book." "I walked all the way here," she said. "I started at midnight. I would have gotten here sooner if I weren't so old." "Where do you live?" I said. "The Kit Carson Hotel," she said. "And I've written a book." Then she handed it proudly to me as if it were the most precious thing in the world. And it was. It was a loose-leaf notebook of the type that you find everywhere in America. There is no place that does not have them. There was a heavy label pasted on the cover and written in broad green crayon across the label was the title: GROWING FLOWERS BY CANDLELIGHT IN HOTEL ROOMS BY MRS. CHARLES FINE ADAMS”

“because you always have a clock strapped to your body, it's natural that i should think of you as the correct time: with your long blonde hair at 8:03, and your pulse-lightning breasts at 11:17, and your rose-meow smile at 5:30, i know i'm right.”