“Sometimes life just did things, he felt, and they didn't have to make sense. It helped when they did, and often the sense of a thing was just around a corner, but that didn't mean you ever got to see it.”

“He felt like his own heart might stop beating just from acknowledging the concept. The sadness, the sorrow, and the loss, they were living things, funnily enough.”

“He didn't want to get his hopes up, but he also refused to be a pessimist about this moment. Everything could go either way.”

“He wasn't anti-gun really—he just wasn't pro-being-shot-at.”

“Saying something is far too simple is a doubter's way or trying to make the world more complex so he won't have answers.”

“Dinner waited for us: steaks and potatoes and manly things, items of a manly meal. Also vodka cranberries.”

“The potential, for anything, was overwhelming to a degree that bothered him. It wasn’t, he thought, the idea of power. It certainly wasn’t that nervous feeling T.C. would get in the pit of his stomach when he knew he had an incredible opportunity in front of him, that amazing brief pause before an act of creation. This was something else. Something to fear and respect.”