“A stranger could drive through Miguel Street and just say “Sum!” because he could see no more. But we who lived there saw our street as a world, where everybody was quite different from everybody else. Mam-man was mad; George was stupid; Big Foot was a bully; hat was an adventurer; Popo was a philosopher; and Morgan was our comedian.”

“Marcovaldo learned to pile the snow into a compact little wall. If he went on making little walls like that, he could build some street for himself alone; only he would know where these streets led, and everybody else would be lost there. He would remake the city, pile up mountains high as houses, which no one would be able to tell from real houses. But perhaps by now all the houses had turned to snow, inside and out, a whole city of snow and with monuments and spires and trees, a city could be unmade by shovel and remade in a different way.”

“She had the same responsibility as everybody else did: to live as softly as she could in the world.”

“Even on the poorest streets people could be heard laughing. Some of these streets were completely dark, like black holes, and the laughter that came from who knows where was the only sign, the only beacon that kept residents and strangers from getting lost.”

“Of course, I could holler Religious Persecution. Not that it would do any good. But it's something I happen to know quite a bit about, seeing as Religious Persecution was my assignment in Social Studies that time we studied Man's Inhumanity to Man. The idea was to write a two-thousand-word report proving how everybody has been a shit to everybody else through the ages, and where did it ever get them? This is supposed to improve us somehow, I guess.”

“There's a stranger in a car Driving down your street Acts like he knows who you are Slaps his hand on the empty seat and says "Are you gonna get in Or are you gonna stay out?" Just a stranger in a car Might be the one they told you about Well you never were one for cautiousness You open the door He gives you a tender kiss And you can't even hear them no more --All the voices of choices Now only one road remains And strangers in a car Two hearts Two souls Tonight Two lanes You don't know where you're goin' You don't know what you're doin' Hell it might be the highway to heaven And it might be the road to ruin But this is a song For strangers in a car Baby maybe that's all We really are Strangers in a car (Driving down your street) Just strangers in a car (Driving down your street) Strangers in a car”