They resumed walking. Alex felt an ache in his eyes and throat. "I don't know what happened to me," he said, shaking his head. "I honestly don't." Bennie glanced at him, a middle-aged man with chaotic silver hair and thoughtful eyes. "You grew up, Alex," he said, "just like the rest of us.

Being somewhere but not completely: that was home for Danny. . . . All he needed was a cellphone or I-access, or both at once, or even just a plan to leave wherever he was and go someplace else really really soon.

When does a fake Mohawk become a real Mohawk? Who decides? How do you know if it's happened?

We live in a moment and a culture when reading is really endangered. There's simply no way to write well, though, if you're not reading well.

I did go on safari in Kenya when I was 17, with my mother, stepfather and little brother, and I kept a careful journal of the experience that was very helpful in terms of my sensory impressions of Africa. I have traveled quite a bit at distinct times in my life, though now that I have kids I've settled down.

I'm a dogged person. I respond to adversity with a steely resistance.

They were snobs or idiots or both...yet she was inexplicably crushed by their coldness.