No--when the rain falls you just let it fall and you grin like a madman and you dance with it, because if you can make yourself happy in the rain then you're doing pretty alright in life. (Nick, page 156)

All this hoping for nothing-or someone-that's maybe hopeless

Lou's such an old punk he was around when the Ramones were junkie hustlers first and musicians second, when punk meant something other than a mass-marketing concept designed to help the bridge-and-tunnel crowd feel cool.

Do you want to guess what's in here?" I asked Dash. "I think I've got it figured out already. There's a new supply of red notebooks in there, and you want us to fill them in with clues about the works of, say, Nicholas Sparks." "Who?" I asked. Please, no more broody poets. I couldn't keep up. "You don't know who Nicholas Sparks is?" Dash asked. I shook my head. "Please don't ever find out," he said.

Things change all the time, mostly in little ways.

Who else would find me at just this moment? First he found me drunk, now he found me cleaning up poo from a barking pony who was about to go into attack mode.

People come to New York to be different, but I go to Starbucks to be the same.