Like friendship, hatred needed more than physical intimacy; it wanted creativity and hard work to sustain itself

I don't do the things other people call "play."

Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another - physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion.

The pieces I am, she gather them and gave them back to me in all the right order.

There in the center of that silence was not eternity but the death of time and a loneliness so profound the word itself had no meaning.

And I am all the things I have ever loved: scuppernong wine, cool baptisms in silent water, dream books and number playing.

As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.