Alas Quotations

Did I help you toward a fate you didn't want, Alaska, or did I just assist in your willful self-destruction?

No," I said. And maybe it was only because Alaska couldn't hit the brakes and I couldn't hit the accelerator.

She's just playing a trick on us. This is just an Alaska Young Prank Extraordinaire. It's Alaska being Alaska, funny and playful and not knowing when or how to put on the brakes.

We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations.

Because no one can catch the motherfucking fox.

And then I screwed up and the Colonel screwed up and Takumi screwed up and she slipped through our fingers.

But why Alaska?' I asked her. 'Well, later, I found out what it means. It's from an Aleut word, Alyeska. It means 'that which the sea breaks against,' and I love that. But at the time, I just saw Alaska up there. And it was big, just like I wanted to be.

Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia.

She has great breasts," the Colonel said without looking up from the whale. "DO NOT OBJECTIFY WOMEN'S BODIES!" Alaska shouted. Now he looked up. "Sorry. Perky breasts." "That's not any better!

The Colonel explained to me that 1. this was Alaska's room, and that 2. she had a single room because the girl who was supposed to be her roommate got kicked out at the end of last year, and that 3. Alaska had cigarettes, although the Colonel neglected to ask whether 4. I smoked, which 5. I didn't.