I got well by talking. Death could not get a word in edgewise, grew discouraged, and traveled on.

Death is the least civilized rite of passage.

...whom he had saved from a life of excessive freedom

Here I am, where I ought to be. A writer must have a place where he or she feels this, the place to love and be irritated with.

So what is wild? What is wilderness? What are dreams but an internal wilderness and what is desire but a wildness of the soul?

Now that I knew fear, I also knew it was not permanent. As powerful as it was, its grip on me would loosen. It would pass.

Add there was that moment when my mother and father walked in the door disguised as old people. I thought the miles in the car had bent them, dulled their eyes, even grayed and whitened their hair and caused their hands and voices to tremble. At the same time, I found, as I rose form the chair, I'd gotten old along with them.