Felt good, though, just being what I was.

Trying to change yourself is as hard as trying to change the universe. Maybe there’s no difference. The fact is, shit happens none of us plan on.

Identity is your role in life, the part you play. Individuality is who you are, and who you are is revealed to you if you can get to complete presence.

With tybo men there isn’t much difference between fucking and killing.

God made man because he loves to hear stories, Alessandro said. That’s a good story, huh?

All this family shit! Harry said. How can you reinvent your life if the original versions won’t leave you alone?

Every time you hear a car alarm, Ruby said, another New Yorker has gone to hell.

Life is a mess, Rose said. You can fix the mess human beings make, Rose said, But you can’t fix the mess being human is.

I was wounded by a blow of love.

Books are in the mind, Grandfather Alessandro said. Too many books and you forget your body is in the world.

There is nothing more lonely than a true artist.

Some people like to bitch, Rose said. Bitching is OK. But for me, I choose a kind of joy — a lucid compulsion — a polemical kind of fuck-you-motherfucker joy.

Life is absolutely, mysteriously beautiful.

Have some fun while you wait for the will of heaven.

That’s when you stop being one way and start being another, Ruby said. Not something many people can do, or want to do. In fact, Ruby said, The only people who cross over, cross over...

The fates lead her who will; who won’t they drag.

Looking for who I am is who I am.