- Nathan: [voiceover] I'm a writer, so I tend to stare a lot. I immerse myself in the world around me, but always at arm's length. I watch, I observe, I take notes.
- Flight Attendant: [serving passengers up ahead] And what would you like?
- Nathan: [voiceover] Everything is subject to become a title for a story, a line in a novel, a scene for a screenplay, but for days now I've done nothing but stare, and I don't know why. Do I not have anything worthy to write about? Must every single word have to impact the world? Why can't I just lay my hands on the keyboard and will my fingers to move? Write! Just write. A familiar voice screams at me, "Write what you know," but if I remain quiet, a still, small voice whispers to me, "Write about what you DON'T know."
- [Nathan describes learning of his mother's whereabouts as being a beautifully wrapped box with a beautiful bow containing what he knows to be broken parts, which he is scared to open]
- Nathan: She rejected me once. What if she does it again?
- Shelly: Then you have to ask yourself, would you be happy just keeping the wrapping and the bow?