Taken from Hubert Selby Jr.'s "Requiem For A Dream"
"And the streets were getting tougher. All the neighborhood streets were filled with dope fiends, even in the snow and sleet, looking for something, anything. Every hallway was cluttered with sick faces with runny noses and bodies shivering with the cold and junk sickness, the cold cracking the marrow of their bones as they broke out in sweats from time to time. The deserted buildings that stretched for miles and made the city look like a battleground of WWII, that gave it the pathetic and devastated look that froze on the faces of the people that inhabited them, were spotted with tiny fires as shivering bodies tried to keep warm and survive long enough to get some dope, one way or another, and make it through one more day so they could start the same routine again. When someone did cop he then had to make it safely to his pad, or some place, where he could get off without someone breaking down the door and stealing his dope and maybe getting killed, or killing, if he didn't want to part with something more precious, at that particular moment, than his life, for without it his life was worse than hell, far worse than death, death seeming to be a reward rather than a threat, because this process of lingering death was the most fearful thing that could happen. And so the city became even more savage with the passing of each day. From time to time a body would fall from a window and before the blood had a chance to seep through the clothing hands were going through his pockets to see what might be found to help them through another moment of being suspended in Hell. Cabbies were avoiding certain neighborhoods and carrying guns. Deliveries weren't made. Some services discontinued. The sections were like cities under siege, surrounded by the enemy trying to starve them into submission, but the enemy was within. Not only within the boundaries of the cities, of the neighborhoods, the deserted buildings and piss stained doorways, but within each and every body and mind and, most of all, soul. The enemy ate away at their will so they could not resist, their bodies not only craving, but needing the very poison that ground them into that pitiable state of being; the mind diseased and crippled by the enemy it was obsessed with and the obsession and terrible physical need corrupting the soul until the actions were less than those of an animal, less than those of a wounded animal, less than those of anything and everything they did not want to be. The police increased their personnel on the streets as the number of insane robberies increased and men and women were shot as they broke store windows and tried to run down the street with a TV set, the sets exploding as they fell to the ground, the bodies sliding on the ice leaving a trail of blood, and freezing, stiff, before being picked up and disposed of. For every bit of dope that was put on the streets there were thousands of eager and sick hands reaching, grabbing, stabbing, choking, clubbing, or pulling the trigger of a gun. And if you did rip somebody off and get away nice and clean you weren't sure you would ever get to see it flow into your veins. And maybe you wouldn't even know that you didn't as you concentrated on cooking it up, not wanting to spill a drop, and somebody bashed in your head before the needle ever got in your arm."