“He had looked at Jude, then, and had felt the same sensation he sometimes did when he thought, really thought of Jude and what his life had been: a sadness, he might have called it, but is wasn't a pitying sadness; it was a larger sadness, one that seemed to encompass all the poor striving people, the billions he didn't know, all living their lives, a sadness that mingled with a wonder and awe at how hard humans everywhere tried to live, even when their days were so very difficult, even when their circumstances were so wretched. Life is so sad, he would think in these moments. It's so sad, and yet we all do it. We all cling to it; we all search for something to give us solace.”

“He had looked at Jude, then, and had felt the same sensation he sometimes did when he thought, really thought of Jude and what his life had been: a sadness, he might have called it, but is wasn't a pitying sadness; it was a larger sadness, one that seemed to encompass all the poor striving people, the billions he didn't know, all living their lives, a sadness that mingled with a wonder and awe at how hard humans everywhere tried to live, even when their days were so very difficult, even when their circumstances were so wretched. Life is so sad, he would think in these moments. It's so sad, and yet we all do it. We all cling to it; we all search for something to give us solace.”

“. . .the particular way he had of structuring his paragraphs, beginning and ending each with a joke that wasn't really a joke, but an insult cloaked in a silken cape.”

“His persistent nostalgia depressed him, aged him, and yet he couldn't stop feeling that the most glorious years, the years when everything seemed drawn in florescents, were gone. Everyone had been so much more entertaining then. What had happened?”

“He will be someone who is defined, first and always, by what he is missing.”

“. . . breathing slowly and rubbing his palm against his chest as if to soothe his heart.”

“He has a vision of his life as a sliver of soap, worn and used and smoothed into a slender, blunt-edged arrow-head, a little more of it disintegrating with every day.”

“That morning he feels fresh-scrubbed and cleansed, as if he is being given yet another opportunity to live his life correctly.”

“He sits at the table and reads novels, old favorites of his, the words and plots and characters comforting and lived-in and unchanged.”

“In those hours he is awake and prowling through the building, he sometimes feels he is a demon who has disguised himself as a human, and only at night is it safe to shed the costume he must wear by daylight, and indulge his true nature.”

“Thank god he wasn't a writer, or he'd have nothing to write about.”

“He had never done it before, and so he had no real understanding of how slow, and sad, and difficult it was to end a friendship.”