Listening to it was like having a mud-slimed piece of silk drawn lightly back and forth across her face.

Life turns on a dime.

You needn't die happy when your time comes, but you must die satisfied, for you have lived your life from the beginning to the end and ka is always served.

Understand death? Sure. That was when the monsters got you.

C-C-Can you get bones in your buh-buh-brain?' Bill asked. This was turning into the most interesting conversation he'd had in weeks.

For every mother who ever cursed God for her child dead in the road, for every father who ever cursed the man who sent him away from the factory with no job, for every child who was ever born to pain and asked why, this is the answer. Our lives are like these things I build. Sometimes they fall down for a reason, sometimes they fall down for no reason at all.

No one ever does live happily ever after, but we leave the children to find that out for themselves.