would you reach in the drawer there and give me my purse. A girl doesn't read this sort of thing without her lipstick.

But it's Sunday, Mr. Bell. Clocks are slow on Sundays.

Lively, too. Talky as a jaybird. With something smart to say on every subject: better than the radio.

Half the people who snuff people, that's what they want: recognition. Get their picture in the paper.

My yardstick is how somebody treats me.

I love New York, even though it isn't mine, the way something has to be, a tree or a street or a house, something, anyway, that belongs to me because I belong to it.

Rusty thinks I should smoke marijuana, and I did for a while, but it only makes me giggle.