"When I remember that dizzy summer, that dull, stupid, lovely, dire summer, it seems that in those days I ate my lunch…"

"It is always so simple, and so complicating, to accept an apology."

"I saw that I'd been mistaken when I thought of myself as a Wall, because a wall stands between, and holds apart, two …"

"Riding on a city bus along the route that you have taken from your job, from the movies, from a hundred Chinese meals…"

"The sky glowed and flashed orange, off toward the mills in the south, as if volcano gods were fighting there or, it s…"

"As a child, coming home at sunset through the infinite chain of backyards that led from the schoolyard to our house, …"

"My worst nightmare was a boring nightmare, the dream of visiting an empty place where nothing happened, with awful sl…"

""What does your father do?" said Jane. He manipulates Swiss bank accounts with money that comes from numbers, whores,…"

"My first thirteen years, years of ecstatic, uncomfortable, and speechless curiosity, followed by six months of disast…"

"The most immediately memorable feature of the decor was the carpeting. A "soothing," embarrassingly synthetic flavor …"