Before catechisms can instill a proper humility, small children know the truth that their own existence has caused the world to bloom into being.

Elena had always felt like the center of her own world - who doesn't? The world arranged itself around her like petals around the stem of a flower. This way the meadows, that way the woodland. Over here, the baryn's estate, out there, the hills that hug the known world close and imply a world at beyond. She could never come up with the edge of a world, because it always kept going on beyond. She moved the center of the world as she walked. The world was balanced on her head.

So let my hands and my face make their way in this world, let my hungry eyes see, my tongue taste.

Books fall open, you fall in. When you climb out again, you're a bit larger than you used to be.

I like to think Im a pretty good-natured guy and pretty civil and probably not ever truly guilty in any serious way of any legal infractions.

Forget us, forget us all, it makes no difference now, but don't forget we loved it when we were alive.

And a puzzle is for the piecing together, especially for the young, who still believe it can be done.