I'm not dead. But when I am, it's likeI don't know, I guess it's like being inside a book that nobody's reading.

All that peace, man, if felt so good it hurt. I want to hurt it back.

There was the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry.

I live in my head all day long and the world is a little dreamy.

Well, right now I'm not dead. But when I am, it's like...I don't know, I guess it's like being inside a book that nobody's reading. [...] An old one. It's up on a library shelf, so you're safe and everything, but the book hasn't been checked out for a long, long time. All you can do is wait. Just hope somebody'll pick it up and start reading.

By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened, and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but that nonetheless help to clarify and explain.

They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.