"The mistake ninety-nine percent of humanity made, as far as Fats could see, was being ashamed of what they were; lying about it, trying to be somebody else."
"You must accept the reality of other people. You think that reality is up for negotiation, that we think it's whatever you say it is. You must accept that we are as real as you are; you must accept that you are not God."
"She had a way of moving that moved him as much as music, which was what moved him most of all. Surely the spirit animating that pearless body must be unusual too? Why would nature make a vessel like that, if not to contain something still more valuable?"
"She seemed to think that one of the perks of marriage was that it gave you rights of comment and intrusion over single people's love lives."
"Birth and death: there was the same consciousness of heightened existence and of her own elevated importance"
"You must accept the reality of other people. You think that reality is up for negotiation, that we think it's whatever you say it is. You must accept that we are as real as you are; you must accept that you are not God."