“The problem isn't that I've hit rock bottom. The problem is that I haven't.”

“The more I wrote, the less I needed to play. Once I got started I couldn't stop. This was my salvation. Writing was a better, healthier, and more enjoyable addiction than gambling, even though gambling was a hell of a lot more lucrative. Playing poker, the gratification isn't delayed. Writing, you sometimes have to wait years for the full punishment.”

“I have to write in order to keep from playing. It's a simple formula. If I play I lose even if I win. If I write I win even if I lose.”

“I didn't sob, I didn't wail, I didn't whimper... because those are all things that dead people cannot do.”

“The table there was boisterous, people were winning and laughing, but they weren't truly interacting, not like they did online. In that world you see the same people over and over again, every day, but these people gathered around the table, I knew, would never see each other again. It was too transitory and was ultimately meaningless, the difference between an empty one-night stand and an actual relationship, and I didn't want any part of it.”

“I wondered if all the people I'd been spending so much time with lately online were sad, unfulfilled, lonely, and more than just a bit strange and if it was this and not cards, good luck, bad luck, and winning and losing that bound us so closely together. Were we all in it for the collective insanity and not the money?”

“He had a hint of a British accent; either he was American and had been educated in England or was English and had been living in America too long. (Or he just could have been an asshole.)”