I do not know what it was about that boy but just looking at him, even I wanted to clout him on the head. It was a head that invited violence.

Your skin is prickly from fatigue and pain and there is a hissing in your ears. Time passes and the pills are taking hold like a glowing white planet coming into view. A reverse eclipse. And you watch with your eyes closed. The white planet is half exposed, it grips your heart in its light and seems to be pulling you forward and now you feel that you are falling. You are awake but dreaming. "The earth is not beautiful but the universe is," you say.

He only wished to fight and cultivate an anger toward me, thus alleviating his guilt, but I would not abet him in this.

Where is your mother, Charlie asked. Dead. I’m sorry to hear that Thank you. But she was always dead.

Come with me into the world and reclaim your independence. You stand to gain so much, and riches are the least of it.

I thought, When a man is properly drunk it is as though he is an a room by himself--there is a physical, impenetrable separation between him and his fellows.

Mayfield said, "You asked what I was thinking. Well, I will tell you. I was thinking that a man like myself, after suffering such a blow as you men have struck on this day, has two distinct paths he might travel in his life. He might walk out into the world with a wounded heart, intent on sharing his mad hatred with every person he passes; or, he might start out anew with an empty heart, and he should take care to fill it up with only proud things from then on, so as to nourish his desolate mind-set and cultivate something positive or new.