Dilemma of civilized man; body mobilized, but danger obscure.

Truth, she thought. As terrible as death. But harder to find.

When two people dream the same dream, it ceases to be an illusion.

Maybe I'll go where I can see stars, he said to himself as the car gained velocity and altitude; it headed away from San Francisco, toward the uninhabited desolation to the north. To the place where no living thing would go. Not unless it felt that the end had come.

Everything in life is just for a while.

Guilt -- if there was any guilt -- spread out and diffused itself over everybody and everything. . . . Perhaps at some point in time, at some spot in the world, a moment of responsibility existed.

Why does a man cry? he wondered. Not like a woman; not for that. Not for sentiment. A man cries over the loss of something, something alive. A man can cry over a sick animal that he knows won't make it. The death of a child: a man can cry for that. But not because things are sad. A man, he thought, cries not for the future or the past but for the present.