Perhaps that is our doom, our human curse, to never really know one another. We erect edifices in our minds about the flimsy framework of word and deed, mere totems of the true person, who, like the gods to whom the temples were built, remains hidden. We understand our own construct; we know our own theory; we love our own fabrication. Still . . . does the artifice of our affection make our love any less real?

When the moment comes to stop running from your past, to turn around and face the thing you thought you could not face--the moment when your life teeters between giving up and getting up--when that moment comes, and it always comes, if you can't get up and you can't give up either, here's what you do: Crawl.

Please, do not leave me, Will Henry. I would not survive it. You were nearly right. What Mr. Kendall was, I am always on the brink of becoming. And you - I do not pretend to know how or even why - but you pull me back from the precipice. You are the one... You are the one thing that keeps me Human.

We'd stared into the face of Death, and Death blinked first. You'd think that would make us feel brave and invincible. It didn't.

Good God, man, what is that smell?" He eyed with disgust the doctor's filthy cloak. "Life," answered the doctor.

The world is a clock winding down.

If I had faced it then, I wouldn't be facing it now, but sooner or later you have to choose between running and facing the thing you thought you could not face.