It was often this way, life consisted of a series of false beginnings, bluff declarations of arrival to destinations not even glimpsed.

It was only as I wrote about fear that I began to find paths of access to feelings that were intolerable to me then.

Every book is a kind of experiment in doing something that feels impossible.

Some people have things written all over their faces; the big guy had a couple of words misspelled in crayon on his.

Life is fundamentally up for grabs

...Don't rupture another's illusion unless you're positive the alternative you offer is more worthwhile than that from which you're wrenching them. Interrogate your solipsism: Does it offer any better a home than the delusions you're reaching to shatter?

How often had that hydrant even been opened? Did you jet water through a car window, what, twice at best? Summer burned just a few afternoons long, in the end. As for flying, Dose never even glanced at the sky. Flying was a summer within a summer, a whim. So why think of it at all?