“Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee affords.”

“I drank coffee and read old books and waited for the year to end.”

“It's strange how the simple things in life go on while we become difficult.”

“In Watermelon Sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar.”

“He learned about life at sixteen, first from Dostoevsky and then from the whores of New Orleans.”

“I will be very careful the next time I fall in love, she told herself. Also, she had made a promise to herself that she intended on keeping. She was never going to go out with another writer: no matter how charming, sensitive, inventive or fun they could be. They weren't worth it in the long run. They were emotionally too expensive and the upkeep was complicated. They were like having a vacuum cleaner around the house that broke all the time and only Einstein could fix it. She wanted her next lover to be a broom.”

“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...”