“You ask me what forces me to speak? a strange thing; my conscience.”

“Look, I know this is the last thing you want to talk about, but I wanted to ask you . . . .” He trailed off, looking strangely uneasy.“Ask me . . . ?” Ask me to dinner? Ask me out for drinks? Ask me if I wanted to see what he looked like under that uniform? Yow, where’d that last one come from?”

“If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.”

“My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me. 'Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak. 'What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? 'I never know what you are thinking. Think.”

“...if you wish to tell me what crime I have committed, explain to me in what a crime consists. For as my conscience does not accuse me, I aver that I am not a criminal.”

“The conscience of my elusive race gives not a fig for me, baby. But I endure, if you know what I mean.”