"Here we are, Walt Whitman's 'classless society' of 'everyone who could read or be read to.' Will one of these listening passengers please write to the City Council and suggest that there always be a reader on this route? Wittman has begun a someday tradition that may lead to a job as a reader riding the railroads throughout the West." Chapter 1, pg. 9

"People who have gone to college - people their age with their attee-tood - well, there are reasons -- people who wear black turtleneck sweaters have no place. You don't easily come home, come back to Chinatown, where they give you stink-eye and call you a saang-hs', a whisker-growing man. Beatnik." Chapter 1, pg. 11

"'U.S.S. Coral Sea is coming into port. I know some guys on it.' She'd [Louise] said that already. This was where he came in. Very short loop. He vowed...