I need a boy who thinks with his big head, not his little one. Since they do not exist, I have fashioned my own.

I think your vision gets better as you get older.

Cry your grief to God. Howl to the heavens. Tear your shirt. Your hair. Your flesh. Gouge out your eyes. Carve out your heart. And what will you get from Him? Only silence. Indifference. But merely stand looking at the playbills, sighing because your name is not on them, and the devil himself appears at your elbow full of sympathy and suggestions. And that's why I did it....Because God loves us, but the devil takes an interest.

There is a ghost here. A lonely, heartbroken spirit. The ghost of everything that could've been and never was.

I could almost hear the characters inside, murmuring and jostling, impatient for me to open the cover and let them out.

But his words fall away. He looks confused. He looks flustered and sorry. Like you do when you run up to someone you think you know and take her arm and she turns around and you were wrong.

We're not punished for our sins, lad. We're punished by them.