The essential and defining characteristic of childhood is not the effortless merging of dream and reality, but only alienation. There are no words for childhood's dark turns and exhalations. A wise child recognizes it and submits to the necessary consequences. A child who counts the cost is a child no longer.

Some part of me knew from the first that what I wanted was not reality but myth.

Passing time adds false memories and modifies real ones.

Love, the simplest, strongest, and most unforgiving of all emotions.

In the end we are all caught in devices of our own making. I believe that. In the end we are all caught.

She looks like the type that might freak out. It's something in the eyes, Frannie. It says if you shoot my sacred cows, I'll shoot yours.

I think that's what people most always do with the stuff they can't make out - just forget it.