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 because they're on some kind of Mission Impossible.I could no longer live and stay the way I was, I said.

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.

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.

Looking for who I am is who I am.

Felt good, though, just being what I was.

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.

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

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

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

Life is absolutely, mysteriously beautiful.

I was wounded by a blow of love.

A person without her or his own truth ain't a person at all, Ida said. Anybody who tells you different—is a jackass, and no longer deserves to be called human being.