Do you know how cruel your God can be, David. How fantastically cruel?...Sometimes he makes us live.

His name is Legion. He is the king of nowhere.

That's the day's business. Thinking. Thinking and isolation, because it doesn't matter if you pass the time of day with someone or not; in the end, you're alone. He seemed to have put in as many miles in his brain as he had with his feet. The thoughts kept coming and there was no way to deny them.

What really scares me is Alzheimer's or premature senility, losing that ability to read and enjoy and to write. And you do it, and some days maybe aren't so good, and then some days, you really catch a wave, and it's as good as it ever was.

You couldn't get hold of the things you'd done and turn them right again. Such a power might be given to the gods, but it was not given to women and men, and that was probably a good thing. Had it been otherwise, people would probably die of old age still trying to rewrite their teens.

A successful novel should interrupt the reader’s life, make him or her miss appointments, skip meals, forget to walk the dog.

And will I tell you that these three lived happily ever after? I will not, for no one ever does. But there was happiness. And they did live.