The company you keep at death is, of all things, most dependent on chance.

It's the possibility that when you're dead you might still go on hurting that bothers me.

But hands are sacred things. Touch is personal, fingers of love, feelers of blind eyes, tongues of those who cannot talk.

Wars of small kingdoms and forgotten lands, what do chessmen dream of in the dark?

Why? is the boy's motto, why does, why is, why not? Food, weather, time, fires, sea and season, clothes and cars and people; it's all grist to the mill of why.

You want to know about anybody? See what books they read, and how they've been read.

The smarter you are, the more you know, the less reason you have to trust or love or confide.