The way I figure it, we know we got this world, so live in this one while you’re here. I figure the next one will take care of itself.

If you own yourself, you own the world.

You know, Rose said, You’re not the first man in history who thinks his cock is the path to wisdom. You’re not the first man to make his hard-on into the Holy Grail.

A ghost in this place. That’s what I am. Or I’m real and Manhattan is a dream.

I tell you I’m tired of hearing it. There ain’t nothing that happens to a person that ain’t that person. The world out there only does what you tell it to do. The world is happening to you the way it is happening because you’re telling yourself the story that way. If you want to change the world so damn bad, Ida, then where you got to start is how it is you’re looking at it.

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

Stars, hard bits of diamond light.

It’s the responsibility of the survivor to tell the story.

Strange when that part in you is touched how quickly you can fall apart. It’s as if the words that are being said go to the deepest place, the place in you that’s become the way you’ve become so you can keep on going. The helmet you put on when you were a kid that grew into your head and now someone is saying you have a helmet on your head.

The gods know what’s important, what’s wrong about you. They know everything. If you go out searching for the Holy Grail, they won’t let you find it.