Women like women too, officer. Try not to fixate on this. Let's move on.

No, I need to go back to a time when *love* was still possible.

INSULINDIAN PHASMID - Few of us can begin to imagine the horror of you -- with all of creation reflected in your forebrain. It must be like the highest of hells, a kaleidoscope of fire and writhing glass. Eternal damnation.

INLAND EMPIRE - His corpse is marked by stars. YOU - What will mine be marked by? INLAND EMPIRE - Alcohol and heartbreak. PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - Your fist clenches suddenly. YOU - It will be riddled with disco.

KIM KITSURAGI - “You need to get your shit together.” YOU - “But I don't wanna get my shit together!” KIM KITSURAGI - “Then the world will turn away from you, and leave you behind.”

YOU - “I need to go to the children, Kim. Girl Child Communism. Boy Child Freedom.” KIM KITSURAGI - “You mean we should do that *right now*, don't you?” the lieutenant asks, his usually even tone wavering slightly. “Can that be done *after* the murder investigation?”

MEASUREHEAD - LOOK AROUND YOU. LOOK AT THE ADVANCEMENTS IN THE SEXUAL SCIENCES -- ALL THE NOVEL TECHNIQUES, ACCESSORIES, PRESERVATIVES, MASSAGE OILS, LUBRICATION SALVES, ABORTION CLINICS.. ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Sounds *fun* -- it's high time you incorporated some of these things into your daily life

SHIVERS - There should be something here -- a memory, a feeling, even if it's just a glimpse -- but the depths of your psyche remain silent. You don't have a single memory of your mother.

LITTLE LILY - I don't say bad words. Lamby doesn't either. HALF LIGHT - FUCK OFF.

YOU - Kim, why did I call that woman a whore, just now?

YOU - I don't think anyone's being promiscuous with me. I wish they were, though.

INLAND EMPIRE - Imagine it. An explosion. Of *stars*. Goodbye world of men, money and machines.

When life closes a door, it opens a window. And if the fall is too steep, use the fire exit. Run to the roof -- you always have that airship on the dock. The most important thing is to keep moving. Keep dreaming.

INLAND EMPIRE - It's all gone now. You never became a poet or an entroponaut.

SHIVERS - I NEED YOU. YOU CAN KEEP ME ON THIS EARTH. BE VIGILANT. I LOVE YOU.

ESPRIT DE CORPS - “Torson?” “Yes.” “McLaine?” “Yes.” “Heidelstam?” “No.” “Vicquemare?” “Yes.” “Du Bois?” “Of course.” ESPRIT DE CORPS - “Really?” Nix Gottlieb looks up from the list. “Harry's our man, he'll pull through -- and when he does he'll side with Revachol.”

How did you get so cool, Kim?

Every so often, you might hear a gunshot pierce the air somewhere in Jamrock. But in Martinaise? No gunshots, no sirens. The people are languishing in boredom and complacency. This place is a sepulcher. We'll paint it red. We bring the raucous -- you bring the sirens.

You're sitting on a kicksled, whizzing through the snow. A warm, kind presence is guiding the sled behind you, her mittened hand resting on your back. You feel very, very loved -- and very, very safe.

Harry, I wanted to write you a letter, so you can read it when you wake up. Maybe it will make you happy. Every morning when I step out and you're asleep behind me, I find a little piece of sadness in me. I carry it in my chest down Voyager Road...

THE HANGED MAN - Love did me in, brother Coppo. It was love all along...

Brother, you already *were* a ghost. Up there, screaming — along with all of them. Scaring each other. Haunting each other. It's the living who are ghosts. The dead are silent. They don't rattle windows or write letters in blood. The living do. Leave them behind. Rest.

PAYPHONE - Calling... PAYPHONE - Calling in the night.... EMPATHY - The saddest sound in the world.

STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST - Julia Dobreva came from Graad. Jean Abadanaiz was born in Revachol. She was brilliant, charismatic, a revolutionary comet. He was her partner and stabiliser, the planet who kept her in orbit.

SHIVERS - In a little alley next to Boogie street, a man in stained overalls steps out of a workshop for a cigarette. His hands are bruised and soaked with motor oil and dirt. He breathes smoke out of his nostrils and closes his eyes. The next five minutes are his and his alone.

I can't believe I met you. I can't believe the happiness I feel with you. You have a vast, vast soul and I will always, always, always come back to it. Kisses, kisses, kisses.

SUGGESTION - They're leaving. They're all turning away from you. ELECTROCHEMISTRY - No. You can figure it out. *Replace* it! Replace the alcohol with amphetamine. Or GBL! Fuck it -- morphine! Graffito removal agent! Anything. It'll buy you time. All you need is time.

The bloating might never leave your face, but beneath it -- you still have some years. You still have some hope.

REACTION SPEED - Wait. Did he just say *Wompty-Dompty-Dom Centre*? SUGGESTION - He did it! He said *Wompty-Dompty-Dom Centre* like it's the most natural thing in the world.

ENCYCLOPEDIA - Your mangled brain would like you to know there is a boxer called Contact Mike. YOU - Yeah? Any news on my wife's name? How about my mother? ENCYCLOPEDIA - Nope.

SHIVERS - The road ascends; a raised motorway loops above the ghetto. Beneath its concrete columns -- a sea of rooftops, woodwork, and tar stretches northward. Four-story buildings as far as the rain can fall. The snows melt in Jamrock.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - That's right -- 'worried'. I'm always worried about you. Every time you don't show up to work, or when you do -- but *stink*.

LOGIC - Sometimes a kebab is just a kebab.

29-year-old wunder-twins Guy and Keith Joost are the stars of the show, with their bomber jackets and white sneakers -- head curators of this art exhibition. It's the wompty-dom-di-dommiest event of the year and all the cool kids have RSVP’d. Where are you, if you are not there?

On a street there that flows like a muddy river in the snow, with fire traps rising on either side. A film rental opens its doors to the rain, an armoured motor carriage rushes past the corner where you used to walk together... Suddenly, the hair on your back rises. SHIVERS - YOU CANNOT RETURN

It would take a million years of evolution – or a total reversal in the condition of the world – for your pain to end.

A tremendous loneliness comes over you. Everybody in the world is doing something without you.

PALEDRIVER - “What are we *doing* here? For thousands of years, Gabriel... It doesn't have to be like this. We can just give up. We can just become vapour.”

PAIN THRESHOLD - Dance till you drop. Dance till you die, if you must.

YOU - A Revolutionary matronym? TRANT HEIDELSTAM - The custom started in Graad, where they have patronyms: Krasovich, Larsovich, etc. The revolutionaries saw this as a chauvinist atavism so they used matronyms, derived from the mother's name, instead.

“That's 40 *cents*. Cents are a form of currency one hundred times smaller than the reál. I'm not even going to take this. Come back when you have 130 reál.” Isn't it... evil? The order of magnitude between what is asked of a person -- and what they have?

MEASUREHEAD - PINKNESS IS A RACIAL QUALITY THAT HAS TO BE EARNED THROUGH CENTURIES OF ADVANCED BALLISTIC WARFARE AND CULTURAL DOMINATION THAT THE GRAAD PEOPLE HAVE UNDERGONE FOR DRINKING AL GUL AND SMOKING THE DEGENERATE *TABAC* HERB... AND FOR EATING *POTATO*.

ENCYCLOPEDIA - The Antistar is (or was) a Vespertine rock and roll star, who liked to do drugs. He did so many drugs he eventually mutated -- into a corpse.

You shiver, and the city shivers with you.

PERCEPTION - Everything's revolving around women and sex with this guy... What's that about?

Time to go to work in the shit factory!

EGG HEAD - “Skibadee, skibadanger! I am the rearranger!”

SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL IS GOING TO HAPPEN

That we continue to persist at all is a testament to our faith in one another.

INLAND EMPIRE - So tell me, how does it feel -- to be close to someone, skin to skin? YOU - It's good, but I'd prefer a man. A solid muscularity would support me better.