“Jaguars, afterall, were fairly common, and so people were more respectful than afraid of them, just as they were of any other natural force.”

“These boys, now, were living as we'd been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities. They were filled with rage. All they really knew were two darknesses, the darkness of their lives, which were now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness, and in which they now, vindictively, dreamed, at once more together than they were at any other time, and more alone.”

“Nobody stopped believing that other people were more guilty than they were. Why do people have so much trouble seeing their own faults but such an easy time seeing everyone else's?”

“So the cold barracks were spared, lonely as they were, and the armories were unscathed, empty as they were, and the larders went unmolested, depleted as they were, and only the common people burned.”

“At any rate, they were strange fellows, these bohemians. They lounged around doing nothing and told you they were working; they were frightfully miserable and yet would tell you that they were perfectly happy. They had more troubles than others but seemed to bear them better, as if they fed on suffering.”

“And it's not that Pearl Jam was any more amazing than anyone else. I think we just liked who we were when they were who they were.”