“Early Morning in Your RoomIt's morning. The brown scoops of coffee, the wasp-likeCoffee grinder, the neighbors still asleep.The gray light as you pour gleaming water--It seems you've traveled years to get here.Finally you deserve a house. If not deserveIt, have it; no one can get you out. MiseryHad its way, poverty, no money at least.Or maybe it was confusion. But that's over.Now you have a room. Those lighthearted books:The Anatomy of Melancholy, Kafka's Letter to his Father, are all here. You can danceWith only one leg, and see the snowflake fallingWith only one eye. Even the blind manCan see. That's what they say. If you hadA sad childhood, so what? When Robert BurtonSaid he was melancholy, he meant he was home.”

“He's not doing anything he shouldn't be doing, right?" "Like what?""Like hitting on you.""Ew. No, of course not. He doesn't see me that way." Michael shook his head and went back to his coffee."What? You think he does?""Sometimes he looks at you a little... oddly, that's all. Maybe you're right. Maybe he just wants you for your blood.""Again, Ew! What's with you this morning?""Not enough coffee.”

“Well, you've got the growling part down pat already. Probaly all those years of practice."He began to rise, his legs wobbly."All right, I'm coming back. I just didn't want to be in your way."A grunt. Your not. Or that's what I hoped he meant."You can understand me, can't you?" I said as I returned to sit on his discarded sweatshirt. "You know what I'm saying."He tried to nod, then snarled at the awkwardness of it."Not easy when you can't talk, is it?" I grinned. "Well, not easy for you. I could get used to it."He grumbled, but I coulld see the relief in his eyes, like he was glad to see me smile."So I was right, wasn't I? It's still you even if wolf form."He grunted."No sudden urges to go kill something?"He rolled his eyes."Hey, you're the one who was worried." I paused. "And I don't smell like dinner, right?"I got a real good look for that one."Just covering my bases.”

“You just want to give up, he said when he was able to speak. Only you keep going. You still have to get up in the morning and pour the cereal in the bowls. You keep on breathing, whether you want to or not. Nobody's around to tell you how it's supposed to work. The usual rules just don't apply anymore. He was still talking, but she wasn't even sure if it was to her. When it started, he said, I thought nothing could be worse than those first days. And it wasn't only us, but everyone else you'd see, wandering around like they'd landed on a whole different planet. Instead of just dealing with your own heart getting ripped into pieces, wherever you looked you knew there were other people dealing with the same thing. You couldn't even be alone with it. Like you're out in the ocean and the undertow catches you and you start yelling for help, but then you look around, and all around you in the water for as far as you can see, there's all these other people flailing too. He sat there for a moment, shaking his head. You keep getting up in the morning and knowing this will continue maybe ten thousand more mornings. You wish you were the one who died. How much better would that be?”

“Oshima's silent for a time as he gazes at the forest, eyes narrowed. Birds are flitting from one branch to the next. His hands are clasped behind his head. "I know how you feel," he finally says. "But this is something you have to work out on your own. Nobody can help you. That's what love's all about, Kafka. You're the one having those wonderful feelings, but you have to go it alone as you wander through the dark. Your mind and body have to bear it all. All by yourself.”

“Anybody," said Johnny, carried away by his personal dream of Democracy, "can ride in one of the hansom cabs, provided," he qualified, "they get the money. So you can see what a free country we got here.""What's free about it if you have to pay?" asked Francie."It's free in this way: If you have the money you're allowed to ride in them no matter who you are. In the old countries, certain people aren't free to ride in them, even if they have the money.”