Did it [cocaine] for about eight years. Not a terribly long time to be an addict I guess, but it is longer than World War II.

You see something, then it clicks with something else, and it will make a story. But you never know when it's going to happen.

I've given up thinking - it keeps getting me into trouble.

Successful rebellions always begin in secret.

The exhilaration was hard to explain. It was a lonely feeling — a somehow melancholy feeling. He was outside; he passed on the wings of the wind, and none of the people beyond the brightly lighted squares of their windows saw him. They were inside, inside where there was light and warmth. They didn't know he had passed them; only he knew. It was a secret thing.

She nods. You're good for the ones you love. You want to be good for the ones you love, because you know that your time with them will end up being too short, no matter how long it is.

My mother was a reader, and she read to us. She read us Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when I was six and my brother was eight; I never forgot it.