“He loves me because I’m the kind of person people come to. It’s an attribute he wishes he had, because he’s a teacher. He teaches history in a private school. One time, when we were walking through Chelsea late at night, a nicely dressed old lady leaned over her gate and handed me a can of green beans and a can opener and said, ‘Please.’ On the subway, a man handed me a letter and said, ‘You don’t have to say anything, but please read the paragraph. I just want somebody else to see it before I rip it up.’ Most of these things have to do with love, in some odd way. The green beans did not have to do with love.”

                     --Ann Beattie, "Running Dreams," 1981

“THE SUBWAYS OF MANHATTAN’S LOWER EAST SIDE HAVE A HOLLOW FEEL ABOUT THEM AFTER MIDNIGHT…AN ATMOSPHERE OF GREY FOREBODING, OF INDEFINABLE MENACE. EVERY NOISE REVERBERATES AGAINST THE COLD CONCRETE WALLS AND DOWN THROUGH THE DARK LABYRINTHINE TUNNELS, LENDING A SINISTER ASPECT TO THE MOST INNOCENT OF SOUNDS. LAUGHTER IS HEARD AS SNIDE JEERING…A WINO’S WHEEZING SIGH BECOMES THE LAST GASP OF MANKIND ITSELF…AND A BIT OF BLUES PLAYED ON YOUNG GIRL’S MOUTH-HARP, THE CRY OF A WORLD IN PAIN.”

                     --Steve Gerber, MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE, Vol. 1, No. 6, 
                             "Death-Song of Destiny!" 1974