“There is nothing left when you reach the center of everything, just the pit of bones inside the innermost circle.”

“When you have nothing left to lose. When there’s nothing left to gain. You find yourself at the edge of the world, wishing nothing would have changed,” I read and instantly got a twisted feeling in the pit of my stomach.“All you can do is jump.”

“Was there ever really a chance for us? What is down in the middle of him, his very center? Does he even have a center, or do you just cut away the layers, away, away, away, until you are left with nothing?”

“Maybe the impossible is possible when you take everything else away.When nothings left, maybe you can reach for something that no one knew existed.Or maybe we became something new. Maybe we made it exist.”

“I poked at the white paper bag. There was nothing left inside. Just like me: a clean crisp outside and nothing at all on the inside.”

“From my own novel.Because in the City, you know there is nothing else, it is a place without roads, without real people, without life. Just an abandoned wreck; desolate; isolated; unloved. Somewhere you go when there is no more life inside of you, when you have no choice, no . . . desire, no personality. It’s a place where you go to die, and after you’re dead, your body is left to rot, and get blown by the wind into nothing, and there is no heaven, no hell, just earth and dust, and insects crawling over your bleached bones . . . it’s bliss.”