“More like the movie where the guy meets a smart girl who wears a lot of sweaters and drinks cocoa. They talk about books and issues and kiss in the rain.”

“Personally, I like to think my brother is having a college experience like they do in the movies. I don't mean the big fraternity party kind of movie. More like the movie where the guy meets a smart girl who wears a lot of sweaters and drinks cocoa. They talk about books and issues and kiss in the rain. I think something like that would be very good for him, especially if the girl were unconventionally beautiful. They are the best kind of girls, I think. I personally find 'super models' strange. I don't know why this is.”

“The world of [comic book] collecting is not a pretty place. For a bunch of guys who like good-over-evil stories, you sure meet a lot of morally bankrupt assholes.”

“First we talked about girls. Not girls like any of us had ever seen in the flesh, but those girls in magazines with huge tits and puffed-up lips and sleepy eyes, like they'd been fucked hard all night and they were mostly pouting now because the guy finally pulled out. We talked about those girls a lot. And it was all talk.”

“You’re too good for me.”He laughed. “Are we talking about the same person? The selfish fucker who curses and yells, blows up cars and beats up people, because he has a temper he can’t control? You know, the one who drinks like a fish and fries his brain with drugs? That person is too good for you?”She shook her head. “I’m talking about the boy who shared his chocolate bar with me when he probably never shared anything before, who gave me his mama’s favourite book, because he thought I deserved to read. The one who seems to be constantly fixing me up when I get hurt. I’m talking about the boy who treats me like I’m a regular girl, the one who desperately needs his bedroom cleaned and laundry washed but chooses to live in a mess and wear dirty clothes, because he’s too polite to ask the girl he kisses for help.”“Wow,” Carmine said. “I’d like to meet that motherfucker.”

“Agee wrote “like someone who had not just viewed the movie but been in it — out with it, as if it were a girl; drinking with it; driving in the night with it.”