When I told you that I’d pray for you, what did you think I was talking about?

he'd once believed that the answer lay somehow in the music he created, he suspected now that He'd been mistaken. The more he thought about it, the more he'd come to realize that for him, music had always been a movement away from reality rather than a means of living in it more deeply. .. he now knew that burying himself in music had less to do with God than a selfish desire to escape.

By reading a lot of novels in a variety of genres, and asking questions, it's possible to learn how things are done - the mechanics of writing, so to speak - and which genres and authors excel in various areas.

People want pretty much the same things: They wanted to be happy. Most young people seemed to think that those things lay somewhere in the future, while most older people believed they lay in the past.

Nothing is really lost or can be lost, No birth, identity, form--no object of the world, Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing... The body, sluggish, aged , cold--the embers left from early fires, ...shall duly flame again

Ironically, he'd yet to leave a good impression. First he'd spilled soda on her, next she'd seen him almost involved in a riot, and then this morning she'd believed him to be either lazy or an idiot.

It was inevitable, of course, but somehow it didn't seem right to Alex that they would never remember the sound of Carly's laughter, or know how deeply she'd once loved them.