“I don't feel any way,' the girl said. 'I just know things.”

“Well, I don't want you to die," Tessa said. "I don't know why I feel it so strongly -- I've just met you -- but I don't want you to die."

"And I trust you," he said. "I don't know why -- I've just met you -- but I do.”

“Personally I like going places where I don't speak the language, don't know anybody, don't know my way around and don't have any delusions that I'm in control. Disoriented, even frightened, I feel alive, awake in ways I never am at home.”

“It was just one of those things," I said, "You know, that just happen. You don't think or plan. You just do it.”

“I don't know. I just feel stuck, like I'm afraid to take any steps, in case they're the wrong ones.”

“I think of myself as an American artist: I like it here... I feel I represent the U. S. in my art but I'm not a social critic. I just paint those things in my paintings because those things are the things I know best. I'm not trying to criticize the U. S. in any way, not trying to show up any ugliness at all. I'm just a pure artist, I guess. But I can't say if I take myself seriously as an artist. I just hadn't thought about it. I don't know how they consider me in print, though.”

“You know I'm old in some ways-in others-well, I'm just a little girl. I like sunshine and pretty things and cheerfulness-and I dread responsibility.”

“"Maybe this isn't coffee at all," I said. "Maybe it's just water after they boiled your filthy shoes in it." I looked up to her black blazing eyes. "Maybe you don't know any better. Maybe you're just naturally careless. But if I were a girl I wouldn't be seen in a Main Street alley with those shoes."”

“I don't know why people see the things that they do. I wouldn't pay to see them, they don't touch me or move me in any way.”

“I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong… I don't feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.”