“This hospital, like every other, is a hole in the universe through which holiness issues in blasts. It blows both ways, in and out of time.”

“A violent act pierces the atmosphere, leaving a hole through which the cold, damp draft of its memory blows forever.”

“A gunshot rang out, blasting a hole in the door. A crossbow quarrel zinged through the hole and stuck quivering into the opposite wall. Seth heard the rocking horse clattering down the staircase, the twang of bowstrings, and the overlapping beat of several other projectiles thudding against the door. "That was awesome," Seth told Kendra."You're psychotic," Kendra replied.”

“There were timelines branching and branching, a mega-universe of universes, millions more every minute. Billions? Trillions? The universe split every time someone made a decision. Split, so that every decision ever made could go both ways. Every choice made by every man, woman, and child was reversed in the universe next door.”

“Strange that one man's actions could touch so many other people, like a single, thoughtless breath of wind coming in an open window and blowing the playing cards every which way.”

“Even for those thousands of young people who don’t get something out there [in a university writing program], the process is still a noble one — the process of trying to say something, of working through craft issues and the worldview issues and the ego issues — all of this is character-building, and, God forbid, everything we do should have concrete career results. I’ve seen time and time again the way that the process of trying to say something dignifies and improves a person”