To read, even in the half-dark, is also to call the lost forward.

Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you adjust and go on - or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the universe is changed, once again, for cold anger requires an eternal vigilance in all matters of slight and offense

Before you save anyone else, you have to save yourself. otherwise, you'rejust a bundle of tics, a stringed puppet manipulated by the chance and the insensible wind.

It's the only condition I know. Bitter Love, Loneliness, contempt for corruption, blind hope. It's where I live. A permanent state of bereavement. This is nothing new.

Notice, notice; let noticing take the place of screaming.

It's unbecoming," she agreed. "A perfect word for my new life. Unbecoming. I who have always been unbecoming am becoming un.

It may merely be apocryphal that when the Wizard saw the glass bottle he gasped, and clutched his heart. The story is told in so many ways, depending on who is doing the telling, and what needs to be heard at the time. It is a matter of history, however, that shortly thereafter, the Wizard absconded from the Palace. He left in the way he had first arrived-- a hot-air balloon-- just a few hours before seditious ministers were to lead a Palace revolt and to hold an execution without trial.