Well," he said, "f’r example, if they ask where you’ve come from, you could say ‘Behind me,’and if they asked where you’re going, you’d say ‘In front of me.

He was having more fun than a barrelful of monkeys.* *Several years earlier Spider had actually been tremendously disappointed by a barrelful of monkeys. It had done nothing he had considered particularly entertaining, apart from emit interesting noises, and eventually, once the noises had stopped and the monkeys were no longer doing anything at all—except possibly on an organic level—had needed to be disposed of in the dead of night.

Something told him that something was coming to an end. Not the world, exactly. Just the summer. There would be other summers, but there would never be one like this. Ever again.

Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.

Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.

Whenever it rains you will think of her.

Someone killed my Mother and my Father and my Sister?" "Yes, someone did." "A Man?" "A Man." "Which means," said Bod, "you're asking the wrong question." Silas raised an eyebrow. "How so?" "Well," said Bod. "If I go outside in the world, the question isn't who will keep me safe from him?" "No?" "No. It's who will keep him safe from me?