Exeter was, I suspect, more crucial in my life than in the lives of most members of my class, and conceivably, than in the lives of almost anyone else who ever attended the school.

I knew that part of friendship consisted in accepting a friend’s shortcomings, which sometimes included his parents.

Peace is indivisible, and the surrounding world confusion found no reflection inside me.

There was no harm in taking aim, even if the target was a dream.

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.

What I mean is, I love winter, and when you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love.

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.