“He knew that all things human are transitory and therefore that it must cease one day or another. He looked forward to that day with eager longing. Love was like a parasite in his heart, nourishing a hateful existence on his life's blood; it absorbed his existence so intensely that he could take pleasure in nothing else.”

“The past was gone and the future had yet to unfold, and he knew he should focus his life on the present…yet his day-to-day existence suddenly struck him as endless and unbearable.”

“It was as if he had known her for a long, long time and before he knew her, he knew nothing because he felt he had not existed then, life had been absent in his breaths.”

“It is one thing to describe an interview with a gorgon or a griffin, a creature who does not exist. It is another thing to discover that the rhinoceros does exist and then take pleasure in the fact that he looks as if he didn't.”

“Once, he'd used it in song, but the songs in his heart had gone silent long ago, and he knew that one day so would his voice. A man with nothing inside him eventually had nothing to say.”

“He reminded me of one of those adventure seekers on TV. He hadn’t shaved in a few days at least, and his reddish hair was suffering from intense bed head. His Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts completed the look. I was inclined to ask him if he knew we were all marked for death or if he just thought he was taking a long cruise.”