Two weeks to change the world, fourteen days to destroy it.

It's a lot easier, she realized, to be on the verge of something than to actually be it. This would still take time.

It would then be brought abruptly to an end, for the brightness had shown suffering the way.

Yes, I'm often reminded of her, and in one of my array of pockets, I have kept her story to retell. It is one of the small legion I carry, each one extraordinary in its own right. Each one an attempt - an immense leap of an attempt - to prove to me that you, and your human existence, are worth it.

You can do all manner of underhanded nice things when you have a caustic reputation.

I carried Rudy softly through the broken street...with him I tried a little harder at comforting. I watched the contents of his soul for a moment and saw a black-painted boy calling the name Jesse Owens as he ran through an imaginary tape. I saw him hip-deep in some icy water, chasing a book, and I saw a boy lying in bed, imagining how a kiss would taste from his glorious next-door neighbor. He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It's his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.

She gave 'The Dream Carrier' to Max as if words alone could nourish him.