And because he felt like he might burst open and because he lacked the dexterity in English to say all that he was thinking--how in his estimation, the more you lived the more regret and longing you suffered, that life was a glorious catastrophe--Pasquale Tursi said, only, "Yes.

There are only two good outcomes for a quest like this, the hope of the serendipitous savant — sail for Asia and stumble on America — and the hope of scarecrows and tin men: that you find out you had the thing you sought all along.

I love humor in writing, so I've written to the thing that's funny, there's the joke, but then I just kept going. I started thinking about all the bikes I've had stolen, and that got me thinking about crime, and that got me thinking about the city I'm in.

And even if they don't find what they're looking for, isn't it enough to be out walking together in the sunlight?

It's once I discover the people inside that the story really gets going, and then the formal invention becomes less important. It's just the way in; it's the door; and then what's behind it is always some kind of people, which I think probably makes me more in the tradition of realistic fiction because that's usually what I'm interested in, the people.

Sometimes what we want to do and what we must do are not the same. Pasquo, the smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier you will be.

And if a moment exists only in one's perception anyway, then perhaps the rush of feeling he has now is THE MOMENT, and not merely its shadow.