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.

The mark of the procedure. A real one. Lu is cured.

The flip side of freedom is this: When you're completely free, you're also completely on your own.

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.

I screamed until my voice dried up in my throat. We all did. All of us in Ward Six, all of us forgotten, left to rot.

There are no happy endings, only breaks in the regular action.

Everything I see and touch reminds me of him, and so everything I see and touch is perfect.