“-When I was growing up, Lieutenant Uhura was a major role model for me, a strong black woman on the bridge of a starship…-In a miniskirt, answering the interplanetary telephone?”

“This wasn't Weirdville, this was fricking Wonderland. Alice here was all grow up, but she was still chowing down on too much of that psychedelic mushroom.”

“While I sleep, and I sleep often these days, he spends much of his time in the church downtown. The very one I never could convince him to attend. He claims he is praying. But I know he is trying to strike a bargain with our Maker.One hand of Black Jack, I know he says. Winner gets to keep the girl.I know for sure, were J. granted that game of cars with the Almighty, he’d go into it with both an ace and a jack up his sleeve.”

“She was looking at the cab, looking right through me, and I knew that she was curious because she’d seen A.J. talking to me. Which, to her, looked an awful lot like A.J. was talking to himself. “Say, I gotta run, mom, I’ll call you later,” I instructed the kid, and then pretend to hang up your phone.”

“She smiled at him, the way she always did, even when he woke up at oh-what-the-fuck-hundred.”

“That was the word she used to describe herself - fit. A.J. would've used other words. Like holy shit and sweet baby Jesus.A) If it were up to me, Alison, you'd never wear clothes again. Nor, for that matter, would I....Things not to say.”

“Everything in my life has been leading up to this," he whispered. "Everything that's happened, everything I've done has been worth it because it's brought me here.”