"I think people just think I am crazy because they see me doing stand-up, but I am generally not. I am very sad. I'm one of those guys that lights candles and listens to Rachmaninoff."

"When a bookworm finally decides to leave the house, perhaps to explore some literary destination in one of her novels, she will be surprised to know that there is a volatile, often antagonistic force in the real world known as the weather."

"Bernier turned in her chair, smiled, and shook their hands. Dana’s heart skipped a beat as she stood inches away from one of New York’s most glamorous and adored women."

"I've been asked by lots of people, 'What happens if you do kill yourself?' They want to know about what it would be like for other people around you, like the person who would find your body, the other kids at school, whoever would have to clean up the blood, what your family holidays would be like."

"We are creatures of rage and madness and bitter tears and we knew that from the start. Our end was disaster and we knew that from the start. We knew it all from the start."

"Perhaps defining a self begins with simply making the first choice, simply rising up and deciding what you desire, and then methodically, like writing, putting one word after the other until you have created a whole self and a whole life in the process."

"Before she can stop herself, she thinks about desire, how it lives within you and yet is separate, surfacing when it chooses, without permission, in the harsh afternoon light, at the moment when you least expect to find it."

"She would never, ever understand the idea that a child, especially an infant, was of more value than an adult who had already gained all the skills needed to benefit the community. The death of potential was somehow worse than a loss of achievement and knowledge was something she had never been able to wrap her brain around."