I couldn't help but think, as I watched him, of the barrels of toxic fluids that had accrued behind Hal's bike shop where the scrub lining the railroad tracks had offered local companies enough cover to dump a stray contaner or two. Everything had been sealed up, but things were beginning to leak out. I had come to both pity and respect Len in the years since my mother left. He followed the physical to try to understand things that were impossible to comphrehend. In that, I could see, he was like me.

One thing about failing repeatedly: If you're still doing it after you've failed that much, you really mean it.

I was like I was in science class: I was curious.

Like a medical procedure,' Ruth said. 'Intricate surgery is needed to patch up the planet.

She liked to imagine that when she passed the world looked after her, but she also knew how anonymous she was.

Then a little voice in him said, Let go, let go, let go

Murderers are not monsters, they're men. And that's the most frightening thing about them.