No one likes to see a government folder with his name on it.
A kid of your age – any kid – could get hold of matches if she wanted to, burn up the house or whatever. But not many do. Why would they want to?
Take the dead from the dead, the old proverb said; only a corpse may speak true prophecy.
Time’s the thief of memory.
They had discovered one could grow as hungry for light as for food.
You say true, I say thankya.
What is writing? Writing is telepathy.
Love didn’t grow very well in a place where there was only fear.
The soil of a man’s heart is stonier; a man grows what he can and tends it.
Don’t go beyond, no matter how much you feel you need to, Doctor. The barrier was not made to be broken. Remember this: there is more power here than you know. It is old and always restless. Remember.
You learned to accept, or you ended up in a small room writing letters home with Crayolas.
Don’t let the door hitcha where the good Lord splitcha.
Bird and bear and hare and fish, give my love her fondest wish.
She ran out of her marriage the way a woman can run out of a pair of sandals when she decides to let go and really dash.
Eddie discovered one of his childhood’s great truths. Grownups are the real monsters, he thought.
Seven, Richie thought. That’s the magic number. There has to be seven of us. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
Oh Christ, he groaned to himself, if this is the stuff adults have to think about I never want to grow up.
Later, going home, I realized they didn’t look alike at all; what made them seem to was the aftermath of stress and the lingering of sorrow. It’s strange how pain marks our faces, and makes us look like family.
I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright.
Friends come in and out of our lives, like busboys in a restaurant.