Activity does not necessarily mean life. Quasars are active. And a monk meditating is not inanimate.

I have seen myself backward.

It really seems to me that in the midst of great tragedy, there is always the horrible possibility that something terribly funny will happen.

You know how people are about not taking care of an animal; they consider it immoral and antiempathic. I mean, technically it's not a crime like it was right after WWT but the feeling's still there.

All responsible writers, to some degree, have become involuntary criers of doom, because doom is in the wind

But the actual touch of her lingered, inside his heart. That remained. In all the years of his life ahead, the long years without her, with never seeing her or hearing from her or knowing anything about her, if she was alive or happy or dead or what, that touch stayed locked within him, sealed in himself, and never went away. That one touch of her hand.

To live is to be haunted.