I miss him like one might miss a scar, or wooden leg, something disfiguring but characteristic.

Unhappiness really meant something back then. Now it's just a drag, like a cold or having no money.

The truth about life was that nothing ever ended until you died, and even then you just left a whole bunch of unresolved narratives behind you.

Not for the first time in my life, and certainly not for the last, a self-righteous gloom had edged out all semblance of logic.

It's just that none of us had the wit or talent to make them into songs. We made them into life, which much messier, and more time consuming, and leaves nothing for anybody to whistle.

I'm very good at the past. It's the present I can't understand.

What came first – the music or the misery? Did I listen to the music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to the music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?