Cytat z książki 19-letniego wówczas autora.

"People want to know who we are, and some think they know who we are. Some think
we’re a bunch of snot-nosed brats. It’s difficult to say really who we are. We don’t have
snot on our noses. What we do have is hopes and fears, or ups and downs, as they are
called.
A lot of the time we are very unhappy, and we try to cheer ourselves up by thinking. We
think how lucky we are to be able to go to school, to have nice clothes and fine things
and eat well and have money and be healthy. How lucky we are really. But we remain
unhappy. Then we attack ourselves for self-pity, and become more unhappy, and still
more unhappy over being sad.

We’re unhappy because of the war, and because of poverty and the hopelessness of
politics, but also because we sometimes get put down by girls or boys, as the case may
be, or feel lonely and alone and lost.

And who we are is people in New York City.

New York is the most exciting city in the world, and also the cruddiest place to be that I
can conceive of. The city, where when you see someone on the subway you know you’ll
never see him again. The city, where the streets are dead with the movement of people
brushing by, like silt in a now-dry riverbed, stirred by the rush of a dirty wind. The city,
where you walk along on the hard floor of a giant maze with walls much taller than
people and full of them. The city is an island and feels that way; not enough room, very
separate. You have to walk on right-angle routes, can’t see where you’re going to, only
where you are, can only see a narrow part of the sky, and never any stars. It’s a giant
maze you have to fight through, like a rat, but unlike the rat you have no reward awaiting
you at the end. There is no end, and you don’t know what you’re supposed to be looking
for.

And unlike the rat, you are not alone. You are instead lonely. There is loneliness as can
exist only in the midst of numbers and numbers who people who don’t know you, who
don’t care about you, who won’t let you care about them."