I thought you hung the moon.

But I was not in the band, because I suffer from the kind of tone deafness that is generally associated with actual deafness

You could hear the wind in the leaves, and on that wind traveled the screams of the kids on the playground in the distance, the little kids figuring out how to be alive, how to navigate a world that was not built for them by navigating a playground that was. . . Who am I to say that these things might not be forever? Who is Pete Van Houten to assert as fact the conjecture that our labor is temporary? All I know of heaven and all I know of death is in this park: an elegant universe in ceaseless motion, teeming with ruined ruins and screaming children.

You used," he said, and then took a sharp breath, "to call me Augustus.

I feel like, like, how you matter is defined by the things that matter to you. You matter as much as the things that matter to you.

Maybe all the strings inside him broke.

Failing to grapple with complexity actually turns out to be a pretty bad life strategy.