“Bottom line, Eliza— you’re my home and my family, and I don’t want to lose you.I could lose everything else, and as long as I still had you and a guitar I know I’d be all right. Do you get what I’m saying?”

“You know what I was thinking about on my way home? How different my life would be if you’d made that gash a little deeper. Or how different yours would be if I’d vaulted myself off a roof nine years ago. Do you ever think about things like that? Like, if either you or I wouldn’t have made it, where would the other one be right now? It was something I thought about all the time: how death changes every remaining moment for those still living.”

“Lying next to Eliza, I had the feeling I had I'd just found something I didn't even know I'd lost.”

“He isn’t like most guys, you know?'I know.'No, but do you really know? I mean here’s the deal, what do most guys want from a woman? I’ll tell you what we want. We want a warm body to sleep next to, preferably one with a nice pair of tits, maybe someone who’ll cook for us and fuck us on a regular basis. Pretty simple, huh? Now, what we don’t want is someone who’s going to come in and disrupt our lives and steal our souls. That’s what we fear most. We call it our freedom, but it’s our souls we’re talking about. You following me?'I nodded.Okay, good. Now forget it. Forget all that,' Pete said. 'Because Jacob’s not like that. He’s never been like that. He’s a damn fool and he wants the exact opposite of all that. He wants someone to obsess over, someone to possess his soul, and those are his corny words, by the way, not mine. It’s what he lives for. It’s what he thinks life’s all about. Do you get what I’m saying?'I nodded again.”

“I’m afraid of everything. Fear of being alone, fear of being hurt, fear of being made a fool of, fear of failure... Still, I think all my fears bleed from one big one...”

“Don't do this to me, Eliza. Please. I need you.” I looked at Paul. He was crying. “You don't need me,” I said, wondering whether or not I believed it. He gripped my face and kissed me. But it was a hard, painful kiss. A severe and bitter kiss. A kiss that seemed so black, so final, it was like death. “Happy fucking Birthday.”

“The music defied classification. If I had been writing areview of the show, I would have labeled it progressive,guitar-driven rock ’n’ roll. But the guitars made sounds guitarsdidn’t always make. Symphonic sounds. Sacred sounds.The music dug in so deep you didn’t hear it so much as feelit, reminding me of a dream I used to have when I was a kid,where I would be standing on a street corner, I would jumpinto the air, flap my arms, and soar up into the sky.That’s the only way I could describe the music.It was the sonic equivalent of flight.”