Fathering imposed an obligation that was more than your money, your body, or your time, a presence neither physical nor measurable by clocks: open-ended, eternal, and invisible, like the commitment of gravity to the stars.

It was nice standing out in the darkness, in the damp grass, with spring coming on and a feeling in my heart of imminent disaster.

It never takes longer than a few minutes, when they get together, for everyone to revert to the state of nature, like a party marooned by a shipwreck. That's what a family is. Also the storm at sea, the ship, and the unknown shore. And the hats and the whiskey stills that you make out of bamboo and coconuts. And the fire that you light to keep away the beasts.

I have a deadline. I'm glad. I think that will help me get it done.

That's a big trunk," James said, as we jammed in the leathery old case that looked so much like the black heart of some leviathan. "It fits a tuba, three suitcases, a dead dog, and a garment bag almost perfectly." "That's just what they used to say in the ads," I said.

I was thinking, too, of Superman and his fortress of solitude.

I thought, I fanced, that in a moment, I would be standing on nothing at all, and for the first time in my life, I needed the wings none of us has.