I'm always trying to reach a transcendent point, a romantic point, but reach it in a really unconventional way, a really profane way. To get to that romantic, touching, heartbreaking place, but through a lot of acts of profanity.

Your being born makes your parents God. You owe them your life, and they can control you. Then puberty makes you Satan, just because you want something better.

I used to work in a funeral home to feel good about myself, just the fact that I was breathing.

And the more she could imagine this island, the less she liked the real world. The more she could imagine the people, the less she liked any real people.

If there’s any trick to doing a job you hate . . . Mrs. Clark says it’s to find a job you hate even more.

Because everything up to now is a story and everything after now is a story.

A certain number of people have to live their lives outdoors between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., and a certain number of people can only leave their homes between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. So basically, public life has to be lived in these shifts, in order for everyone to fit on the streets because there's just no more room for any more infrastructure, any more highways. So it polarizes the community into day people and night people, and it becomes sort of a metaphor for racism and classism.