“His clock was set on pioneer time. He met trains that had not yet arrived, he waited on platforms that hadn't yet been built, beside tracks that might never be laid.”

“When I first met him, he did not care if a friend did not fit into his world, because at that time his world had not been born yet.”

“I felt for the first time the premonitory of loneliness.It was all fantastic, and yet, and yet...He might be a poor lover, but I was a poor man. He had in his hand the infinite riches of respectability”

“It's too cowardly, and besides, I don't have the courage. [on why he hadn't killed himself yet]”

“He had been full of the idea so long, dreamed it right through to the end, waited with his teeth set, so to speak, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity. Now, in the reaction, he was running down like an overwound clock.”

“Diamond Skinner had had no material possessions to his name and yet had been the happiest creature Lou had ever met. He and God would no doubt get along famously.”