“The rain was still crashing down, angrily machine-gunning the large windows; it poured through the gutters up in the tower and funneled along the flat roof, sounding like footsteps on the ceiling.”

“Above me soft footsteps, the sound through the ceiling of a teenager haunted by a door to the night. My cousin Maybonne lights up a Salem, blows ghosts to the darkness, be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.”

“Art is the funnel, as it were, through which spirit is poured into life.”

“I could hear rain still pouring from the gutters and a thin branch scraping against one of the windows; but the church seemed completely cut off from the restless day outside--just as I felt cut off from the church. I thought: I am a restlessness inside a stillness inside a restlessness.”

“At the front window was something that looked like a machine gun with a cluster of barrels. “Rocket launcher?” he wondered aloud. “Nope, nope! Potatoes. Ella doesn't like potatoes.”“Ella! Where are the others?”“Roof. Ogre-watching. Ella doesn't like ogres. Potatoes.”Potatoes? Frank didn't understand until he swiveled the machine gun around. Its eight barrels were loaded with spuds. At the base of the gun, a basket was filled with more edible ammunition…“They have cannonballs,” Frank said, “and we have a potato gun.”“Starch,” Ella said thoughtfully. “Starch is bad for ogres.”

“With the rain fallingsurgically against the roof,I ate a dish of ice creamthat looked like Kafka's hat.It was a dish of ice creamtasting like an operating tablewith the patient staringup at the ceiling.”