A dead afternoon in a dark bar was not the worst of fates.

There's a moral force in a sentence when it comes out right. It speaks the writer's will to live.

Isn't death the boundary we need? Doesn't it give a precious texture to life, a sense of definition? You have to ask yourself whether anything you do in this life would have beauty and meaning without the knowledge you carry of a final line, a border or limit.

He said, "The word for moonlight is moonlight.

A photograph is a universe of dots. The grain, the halide, the little silver things clumped in the emulsion. Once you get inside a dot, you gain access to hidden information, you slide into the smallest event. This is what technology does. It peels back the shadows and redeems the dazed and rumbling past. It makes reality come true.

There are no amateurs in the world of children.

Eye contact was a delicate matter. A quarter second of a shared glance was a violation of agreements that made the city operational.