1
Just a beginner, but he learned so fast. Everything came so damn easy to him. Not true. The hard things cam easy. But the easy things he found impossibly hard.Janet Fitch
2
She had forgotten about this, the narcotic of the crowd. This is why you came to hear music. To stop being yourself, to let that thing that you supposedly were go, and just be part of a mob, synchronized by the heavy beat, mesmerized by a singer with big smeary red lips, her spooky chant.Janet Fitch
3
He was obsessed with obituaries. She'd never read them before, he couldn't believe it, to him it was like someone who'd never read the funnies... Michael always wanted to know what they died of- accidental gunshot wounds, overdose, cancer. 'Was it suicide?' That's what he really wanted to know.Janet Fitch
4
A month ago she would have been embarrassed at the confidence. Now she felt a surprising kinship. She was a citizen of the new land, a country she had never before visited, only a rumor, this vast unseen tract, its boundary exactly that of the whole world, taking up the space and shape of the world but completely unlike it. It had a different atmosphere, hard to breathe, and how heavy you were here, it pulled you down like the gravity on Jupiter. .Janet Fitch
5
Michael, in a motel in Twentynine Palms, a gun in his hands. Not at Meredith's, painting in an explosion of new creation. Not over on Sunset, digging through the record bins, or at Launderland separating the darks and lights. Not at the Chinese market, looking at the fish with their still-bright eyes. Not at the Vista watching an old movie. Not sketching down at Echo Park. He was in a motel room in Twentynine Palms, putting a bullet in his brain. .Janet Fitch
6
Meredith's father, the composer, who shot himself in this house. Came all the way from Vienna to shoot himself in LA. Escaped the Nazis but not himself.Janet Fitch
7
She wished Michael had had a grandfather like this guy Morty, someone to tell him, "It's a rotten deal, the house always wins. Just sit at the table and play for all you're worth." Instead of one who showed him how to die.Janet Fitch
8
Although she was giddy with exhaustion, sleep was a lover who refused to be touched....Janet Fitch
9
Now it seemed unbelievable, the innocence of a girl in a fairy tale.Janet Fitch