My boots were so heavy that I was glad there was a column beneath us. How could such a lonely person have been living so close to me my whole life? If I had known, I would have gone up to keep him company.

What is suffering? I'm not sure what it is, but I know that suffering is the name we give to the origin of all the sighs, screams, and groans — small and large, crude and multifaceted — that concern us. The word defines our gaze even more than what we are looking at.

In truth I was manufacturing a brick wall of shits.

But I dig Negroes. I dig them all the way.

It was not the feeling of completeness I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty.

Maybe I'll try to be more patient with morons.

Books are for those without real lives, he thought. And they are no real replacement.