“He understood the phenomenon, of how almost dying made you appreciate what life had to offer. And it was a potent drug, that feeling. Battle was not glorious. But surviving it? That was.”

“He made her play and she had almost forgotten how. Life had been so serious and so bitter. He knew how to play and swept her along with him.”

“Happy species endowed with infinite appreciation of pleasures and low sensitivity to pain would probably not survive the evolutionary battle.”

“Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error in judgement. When a bunch of people begin to do it, it is a social error, a life-style. In this particular life-style the motto is “Be happy now because tomorrow you are dying,” but the dying begins almost at once, and the happiness is a memory.”

“I know what it's like to battle everyday of my life, just for acceptance, just to survive.”

“Love isn't how you feel. It's what you do. I've never had a feeling in my life. As a matter of fact, I matter only with earth people.”

“I will remember the kisses, our lips raw with love,
and how you gave me everything you had
and how I offered you what was left of me.”

“She could have had a life as potent and dangerous as literature itself.”

“What's the point anyway — Of suffering, dying? It teaches us to live, boy. A man who does not struggle does not live, he survives.”

“Music was his life, it was not his livelihood,
And it made him feel so happy and it made him feel so good.
And he sang from his heart and he sang from his soul.
He did not know how well he sang; It just made him whole.”