I could introduce myself properly, but it's not really necessary. You will know me well enough and soon enough, depending on a diverse range of variables. It suffices to say that at some point in time, I will be standing over you, as genially as possible. Your soul will be in my arms. A color will be perched on my shoulder. I will carry you gently away.

Please, trust me, I most definitely can be cheerful. I can be amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that's only the A's. Just don't ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me.

He watched them grow, until eventually, great forests of words had risen throughout Germany.... It was a nation of farmed thoughts.

Make no mistake, the woman had a heart. She had a bigger one that people would think. There was a lot in it, stored up, high in miles of hidden shelving. Remember that she was the woman with the instrument strapped to her body in the long, moon-slit night.

Sometimes you read a book so special that you want to carry it around with you for months after you've finished just to stay near it.

Just be patient, she told herself, and with the mounting pages, the strength of her writing fist grew.

If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter.