... her taste in music haunted my memory and I had to stop at Tower Records on the Upper West Side to buy ninety dollars' worth of rap CDs but, as expected, I'm at a loss: [...] voices uttering ugly words like digit, pudding, chunk.

And as the elevator descents, passing the second floor, and the first floor, going even father down, I realize that the money doesn't matter. That all that does is that I want to see the worst

Women aren't very bright," Rip says. "Studies have been done.

I needed something--the distraction of another life--to alleviate fear.

What do you do?' she asks, holding out the vest. 'What do you do?' 'What do you do?' she asks, her voice shaking. 'Don't ask me, please. Okay, Clay?' 'Why not?' She sits on the mattress after I get up. Muriel screams. 'Because... I don't know,' she sighs. I look at her and don't feel anything and walk out with my vest.

I'm not a big believer in disciplined writers. What does discipline mean? The writer who forces himself to sit down and write for seven hours every day might be wasting those seven hours if he's not in the mood and doesn't feel the juice. I don't think discipline equals creativity.

Baby, when you were young and your heart was an open book, you used to say live and let live. You know you did, you know you did, you know you did.