The body has only so many weeks of stage fright in it before it simply gives up and just goes out onstage. (beautiful grade)

Truth be told, Bill is a little afraid of suicide. Taking one's life, he thinks, has too many glitzy things to offer: a real edge on the narrative (albeit retrospectively), a disproportionate philosophical advantage (though again, retrospectively), the last word, the final cut, the parting shot. Most importantly, it gets you the hell out of there, wherever it is you are, and he can see how such a thing might happen in a weak but brilliant moment, one you might just regret later while looking down from the depthless sky or up through two sandy anthills and some weeds. Still, Lina is the one he finds himself thinking about, and carefully dressing for in the morning--removing all dry-cleaning tags and matching his socks. (beautiful grade)

This taboo regarding age is to make us believe that life is long and actually improves us, that we are wiser, better, more knowledgeable later on than early. It is a myth concocted to keep the young from learning what we really are and despising and murdering us. We keep them sweet-breathed, unequipped, suggesting to them that there is something more than regret and decreptitude up ahead. (beautiful grade)

Why not admit history's powers to divide and destroy? Why attach ourselves to the age-old stories in the belief that they are truer thanthe new ones? By living in the past, you always know what comes next, and that robs you of surprises. It exhausts and warps the mind. We are lucky simply to be alive together; why get differentiating and judgmental about who is here among us? Thank God there is anyone at all. (beautiful grade)

Every songwriter in their smallest song seems to possess some monumental grief clarified and dignified by melody, Bill thinks. His own sadnesses, on the other hand, slosh about in his life in a low-kew way, formless and self-consuming. Modest is how he sometimes likes to see it. No one is modest anymore. Everyone exalts their disappointments. They do ceremonious battle with everything; they demand receipts and take their presents back--all the unhappy things that life awkwardly, stupidly, without thinking, without bothering even to get to know them a little or to ask around! has given them. They bring it all back for an exchange. (beautiful grade)

"I would be a genius now [...] if only I'd memorized Shakespeare instead of Lulu." (what you want to do fine)

But ultimately, it all remained unreadable for him, though reading, he felt, was not a natural thing and should not be done to people. In general, people were not road maps. People were not hieroglyphs or books. They were not stories. A person was a collection of accidents. A person was an infinite pile of rocks with things growing underneath. (what you want to do fine)

"There's something that with time grows between people," he said once, in an attempt to keep them together [...] "Something that grows whether you like it or not." "Gunk," Annie said. "What?" "Gunk!" she shouted. "Gunk grows between people!" (what you want to do fine)

They have brought along the game Trivial Pursuit, and at night Quilty likes to play. Though Mack complies--if that's what you want to do, fine--he thinks it's a dumb game. If you don't know the answer, you feel stupid. And if you do know the answer, you feel just as stupid. More stupid. What are you doing with that stupid bit of information in your brain? (what you want to do fine)

There is something comforting, thinks Mack, in embracing someone the same size as you. Something exhilarating even: having your chins over each other's shoulders, your feet touching, your heads pressed ear-to-ear. (what you want to do fine)