“You know a guy a longtime, and I mean really know him, you don't get used to the idea that he's dead just overnight.”

“I have no idea why I write. The old standards are: I like to express my feelings, stretch my imagination, earn money.”

“Anything you read can influence your work, so I try to read good stuff.”

“Asleep, he looked a lot younger than going-on-seventeen, but I had noticed that Johnny looked younger when he was asleep too, so I figured everyone did. Maybe people are younger when they are asleep.”

“I've been thinking about it, and that poem, that guy that wrote it, he meant you're gold when you're a kid, like green. When you're a kid everything's new, dawn. It's just when you get used to everything that it's day. Like the way you dig sunsets, Pony. That's gold. Keep that way, it's a good way to be.”

“let's do it for Johnny”

“... Hey, I didn't know you didn't like baloney."I went cold. "I don't like it. I never liked it."Soda just looked at me. "You used to eat it. That's why you wouldn't eat anything while you were sick. You kept saying you didn't like baloney, no matter what it was we were trying to get you to eat.""I don't like it," I repeated.”