If I want to see other schizophrenics, I don’t really have to look far. This is San Francisco. I see’em standing on every street corner downtown—yelling at cars and talking to shit that isn’t there.
-- Miles (chapter 1 paragraph 41)

Importance: Miles has schizophrenia. He has come to recognize people on the street not merely as homeless, but he’s been able to pick out the mentally ill based on what he now knows are the symptoms. He is embarrassed that they are there because he has the same type of disease, and he sees himself as one of them in his future.

I appreciate you trying to give me hope and all. But I know what my chances are. It seems like I’d be doing everyone a favor if I could just end it, you know?
-- Miles (chapter 5 paragraph 23)

Importance: Because this is early in the story, it is a foreshadowing of things to...