This was the tree, and it seemed to me standing there to resemble those men, the giants of your childhood, whom you encounter years later and find that they are not merely smaller in relation to your growth, but they are absolutely smaller, shrunken by age. In this double demotion the old giants have become pygmies while you were looking the other way.

I never killed anybody and I never developed an intense level of hatred for the enemy. Because my war ended before I ever put on a uniform; I was on active duty all my time at school; I killed my enemy there.

It is a sad day when one looks back and sees that his largest regrets have become some of the most integral elements of his dreams.

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

You have to do what you think is the right thing, but just make sure it’s the right thing in the long run, and not just for the moment.

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.

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.