Oh, that river of wishes, the slippery crocodile dream of it, how it might have carried my body down through all the glittering sand bars to the sea.

For scientists, reality is not optional.

The way I see it, a person isn't nothing more than a scarecrow... The only difference between one that stands up good and one that blows over is what kind of a stick they're stuck up there on.

Arterial-plaque specials that save minutes now can cost years, later on.

Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.

A first child is your own best foot forward, and how you do cheer those little feet as they strike out. You examine every turn of flesh for precocity, and crow it to the world. But the last one: the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after--oh, that' s love by a different name.

No other continent has endured such an unspeakably bizarre combination of foreign thievery and foreign goodwill.