“...if a person doesn't know they're hurting, why, maybe they're not. I was wrong.”

“They're animals, all right. But why are you so goddam sure that makes us human beings?”

“so here he sits one drunk nigger in a puclic libary after closing, with the book open in front of me and the bottle of Old Kentucky on my left. 'Tell the truth and shame the devil,' my mom used to say , but she forgot to tell me that sometimes you can't shame Mr Splitfoot sober. The Irish know, but of course they're God's white niggers and who knows maybe they're a step ahead.”

“Maybe there aren't any such things as good friends or bad friends - maybe there are just friends, people who stand by you when you're hurt and who help you feel not so lonely. Maybe they're always worth being scared for, and hoping for, and living for. Maybe worth dying for too, if that's what has to be. No good friends. No bad friends. Only people you want, need to be with; people who build their houses in your heart.”

“Animals don't know as much about jealousy as people, but they're not ignorant of it, either.”

“And in real life endings aren't always neat, whether they're happy endings, or whether they're sad endings.”

“When creative people do their best work, they're hardly ever in charge, they're just sort of rolling along with their eyes shut yelling wheee.”