I'm seventeen and I'm crazy. My uncle says the two always go together. When people ask your age, he said, always say seventeen and insane.

This was all he wanted now. Some signs that the immense world would accept him and give him the long time he needed to think all the things that must be thought.

Collecting facts is important. Knowledge is important. But if you don't have an imagination to use the knowledge, civilization is nowhere.

The important thing is to be in love with something.

Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

I’ve learned that by doing things, things get done.

Out in the world not much happened. But here in the special night, a land bricked with paper and leather anything might happen, always did.