Things would get difficult again. But that was okay too. The bravery was in moving forward, no matter what.

Most things, even the greatest movements on earth, have their beginnings in something small. An earthquake that shatters a city might begin with a tremble, a breath. Music begins with a vibration . . . And God created the whole universe from an atom no bigger than a thought.

I’m sorry for everything.” Then he turns and pushes back into the woods, and he’s gone.

There's that confidence again, that semi-infuriating easiness of his, the tilt of his head and the smile. but today it's not infuriating. Today I like it, feel like it's somehow rubbing off on me, like if I was around him enough I would never feel awkward or frightened or insecure.

Direction, like time, is a general thing, the deprived of boundaries and borders. It is an endless process interception and reinterception, doubling back and adjusting.

Fred is officially the mayor of Portland now.

They say the cure is about happiness, but I understand now that it isn't, and it never was. It's about fear: fear of pain, fear of hurt, fear, fear, fear - a blind animal existence, bumping between walls, shuffling between ever-narrowing hallways, terrified and dull and stupid.