So we forgive each other?" The crooked smile climbs up one more time. "Again?" And I look right into his eyes, right into him as far as I can see, because I want him to hear me, I want him to hear me with everything I mean and feel and say. "Always," I say to him. "Every time.

Why can't we learn to live with how we are? And whatever anybody chooses is okay by the rest of us?

As destruction goes, the monster said behind him, this is all remarkably pitiful.

So who are you then, Todd Hewitt?" he says. "What makes you so special?" Now that, I think, is a very good asking.

For me it is really important to have a story with blood in the veins, there are bad tempers and good tempers.

Ah, well, then you've never stood on a beach as the waves came crashing in, the water stretching out from you until it's beyond sight, moving and blue and alive and so much bigger than even the black beyond seems because the ocean hides what it contains.

I promised to keep on going but maybe keep on going means coming back first.