“Sometimes when things are particularly bad, my brain will give me a happy dream.”

“I...have always known that my destiny was, above all, a literary destiny — that bad things and some good things would happen to me, but that, in the long run, all of it would be convertedinto words. Particularly the bad things, since happiness does not need to be transformed: happiness is its own end.”

“Just to keep the bad dreams at bay, she took a swig out of a bottle that smelled of apples and happy brain-death.”

“Dream of me, my beloved family, happy in my plundering and adventuring, for when the waves rock me to sleep tonight, I will be dreaming of you.”

“And sometimes when you lie to me Sometimes I’ll lie to you And there isn’t a thing you could possibly do All these half-destroyed lives Aren’t as bad as they seem But now I see blood and I hear people scream Then I wake up And it’s just another bad dream . . .”

“At the red light, I looked around. Some guy in the next car had his window down and was giving me the once-over. Sometimes I get embarrassed when people catch me singing, particularly when I'm crying at the same time. But today, here, in the first moments of my New Beginning, I didn't give a shit. ”