Close up your head; your brain is getting loose.

If one did not have at least a little luck, one would never survive childhood. But luck can be spent, like money; and lost, like a memory; and wasted, like a life.

No, not like this, when I have not seen you without your skin on, when I know nothing, when I am not safe. Not you, whose name all my nightmares know.

Hats change everything. September knew this with all her being, deep in the place where she knew her own name, and that her mother would still love her even though she hadn’t waved goodbye. For one day her father had put on a hat with golden things on it and suddenly he hadn’t been her father anymore, he had been a soldier, and he had left. Hats have power. Hats can change you into someone else.

He missed you like a fish in a bowl misses the open sea.

Do you know, we're right underneath Springtime Parish? This place is the opposite of springtime. Everything past prime, boarded up for the season. Just above us, the light shines golden on daffodils full of rainwine and heartgrass and a terrible, wicked, sad girl I can't get back to. I don't even know if I want to. Do I want to be her again? Or do I want to be free? I come here to think about that. To be near her and consider it. I think I shall never be free. I think I traded my freedom for a better story. It was a better story, even if the ending needed work.

You know how we can be about things which sparkle and shine. We imagine they will put back something of what has been lost.