"...A voice in my head says: walk away, Bobby, just walk away. But I'm also thinking: what the fuck, take the money and run. Whatever the amount. Isn't that the reason I set out so early, why I walked all morning through dirty Moscow streets -- to make a quick sale?"...to get home, back to America."
"For the first few nights, I woke up in the dark screaming and Mama would lie down with me until I fell asleep again. In the daytime, I kept searching the street hoping to see Irina and the boys coming to take me back to the village...But nobody came..."
"...To be an ambitious writer--I am one--is to be involved in all sorts of troubles particular to the category, including the ones I've mentioned. I will not be advising you how to cope with them. I don't know how to cope with them. What I do is suffer them, like everybody else."