You are thirty minutes late." "Yes." "Would you be thirty minutes late to a wedding or a funeral?" "No." "Why not, pray tell?" "Well, if the funeral was mine I'd have to be on time. If the wedding was mine it would be my funeral.

if you think they didn't go crazy in tiny rooms just like you're doing now without women without food without hope then you're not ready.

Keep your money in your pocket. Or bet it on a good horse.

I wasn’t lonely. I experienced no self-pity. I was just caught up in a life in which I could find no meaning.

Sex is interesting, but it's not totally important. I mean it's not even as important (physically) as excretion. A man can go seventy years without a piece of ass, but he can die in a week without a bowel movement.

I went to the worst of bars hoping to get killed but all I could do was to get drunk again.

The blankets had fallen off and I stared down at her white back, the shoulder blades sticking out as if they wanted to grow into wings, poke through that skin. Little blades. She was helpless.