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

Words, too, have genuine substance -- mass and weight and specific gravity.

Each of us, I suppose needs his illusions. Life after death. A maker of planets. A woman to love, a man to hate. Something sacred. But what a waste.

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

Even now, as I write this, I can still feel that tightness. And I want you to feel it--the wind coming off the river, the waves, the silence, the wooded frontier. You're at the bow of a boat on the Rainy River. You're twenty-one years old, you're scared, and there's a hard squeezing pressure in your chest. What would you do? Would you jump? Would you feel pity for yourself? Would you think about your family and your childhood and your dreams and all you're leaving behind? Would it hurt? Would it feel like dying? Would you cry, as I did?

A place where your life exists before you live it, and where it goes afterwards.

Imagination is a killer.