Dr. Everest, got up and gave us a little pep talk. Mostly it boiled down to the fact that it was autumn, and everyone was back, and while that was a great thing, people better not get cocky or misbehave or he'd personally kill us all. He didn't actually say those words, but that was the subtext.

My final word: don't follow your dreams . . . chase them. With a stick, or a shovel, or whatever you have handy. Get that [bleep]ing dream!

And if we get caught, I will claim I made you go. At gunpoint. I am American. People will assume I'm armed.

I knew it was beautiful, but knowing something is beautiful and caring about it are two very different things, and I didn't care.

Tired, but not the kind of tired that sleep fixes.

I ran like a thing that runs.

These houses had been plunked down with an alarming randomness -- unevenly spaced, on crooked lines, like whoever had designed the place had said, "We'll just follow this cat, and wherever he sits down, we'll build something.