...there is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there.

There’s no use in denying it: this has been a bad week. I’ve started drinking my own urine.

Hip," I murmur, remembering last night, how I lost it completely in a stall at Nell's---my mouth foaming, all I could think about were insects, lots of insects, and running at pigeons, foaming at the mouth and running at pigeons.

I convinced myself I hadn't seen anything, ... I had done this many times before ... I was adept at erasing reality.

With "Taipei" Tao Lin becomes the most interesting prose stylist of his generation...

I wasn't acting on passion. I was simply acting.

Rock 'n' roll. Deal with it.