All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way-if he ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy.

I did no know everything there was to know about myself, and knew that I did not know it.

I lost part of myself to him then, and a soaring sense of freedom revealed that this must have been my purpose from the first: to become a part of Phineas.

I felt that I was not, never had been and never would be a living part of this overpoweringly solid and deeply meaningful world around me.

So the more things remained the same, the more they changed after all. Nothing endures. Not love, not a tree, not even a death by violence.

Sarcasm is the protest of the weak.

All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way-if he ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy.