“And anyhow the world doesn’t end. Even though it may try to, even though you wish to hell it would—it can’t. There’s always some poor jerk who thinks he needs something he hasn’t got, and there goes five years, ten years, getting it. And then it’ll be something else. It’s another day and you’re still waiting for the world to end.
“Oh, sometimes, you know, I have to laugh. When I think— Like the first time you’re really in love and you say to yourself, Hey! I’m really in love! Now I know what it’s about. And then he leaves you and you can’t believe it. Or worse than that you gradually lose sight of it. Just gradually. You’re in love, only it isn’t as wonderful as it used to be. Maybe you’re not even in love, maybe you just want to be. And maybe you don’t even want to be. You stop bothering about songs on the radio and there’s nothing you want to do but sleep. Do you know? But you can only sleep for so long and then it’s tomorrow. The icebox is empty and you have to think who haven’t you borrowed any money from and the room smells and you get up just in time to see the most terrific sunset. So it wasn’t the end of the world after all, it’s just another day.
”You know, when I came here, there was a part of me that was so happy. Like the first day of school, though maybe that was terrifying, I can’t remember. Anyhow. I was so happy because I thought, here I am, this is the bottom. At last! The end of the world, right? And then, it was only the next day, I was up on the veranda and there it was again, this perfectly gorgeous sunset, with Brooklyn all big and mysterious, and the river. And then it was as though I could take a step back from myself, like when you’re sitting across from someone in the subway and they don’t know you’re watching them, I could see myself like that. And I thought, Why you dope! You’ve only been here one day, and here you are enjoying a goddamned sunset."