“I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting”

“Though experience should be our guide . . . and we see mistakes are common at the age of twenty-three, it must be acknowledged that not every youthful feeling begins unworthily and ends in error. If this were the case, mankind would have perished long ago.”

“I can't sleep. There is a woman stuck between my eyelids. I would tell her to get out if I could. But there is a woman stuck in my throat”

“Barry had done it with her, the girl I loved, and it had meant nothing to him; Tanya would die and no one would care; and there were billions of bodies alive on earth and they would all be buried and ground into dirt; and Picasso was a master at age sixteen and I was a perfect shit.”

“They had nothing to say to each other. A five-year age gap between siblings is like a garden that needs constant attention. Even three months apart allows the weeds to grow up between you.”

“Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.”