I couldn't hear a thing in the world but you. And it was so cold then, and so silent, and I loved you so much. Now it's hot and dead quiet again, and I love you still.

We're invisible. I've never been here with someone else. It's different being invisible with someone.

Is the labyrinth living or dying?

The Colonel led all the cheers. Cornbread!" he screamed. CHICKEN!" the crowd responded. Rice!" PEAS!" And then, all together: "WE GOT HIGHER SATs." Hip Hip Hip Hooray!" the Colonel cried. YOU'LL BE WORKIN' FOR US SOMEDAY!

You are so busy being YOU that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are.

I leave, and the leaving is so exhilarating I know I can never go back. But then what? Do I just keep leaving places, and leaving them, and leaving them, tramping a perpetual journey?

If you were to go, and hopefully someday you will, you would see a lot of paintings of dead people. You'd see Jesus on the cross, and you'd see a dude get stabbed in the neck, and you'd see people dying at sea and in battle and a parade of martyrs. But Not. One. Single. Cancer. Kid. Nobody biting it from the plague or smallpox or yellow fever or whatever, because there is no glory in illness. There is no meaning to it. There is no honor in dying of.