“Last winter I tried to talk Jesse into leaving. Not anymore. I've grown to cherish the freedom, the openness of this land, the wall I plastered, the trees I planted. I can see God using me. Homesteading, building a community with people I care about...”

“See, I can talk to the pretty man like a real grown up if I try hard enough.”

“I talk about talking like I listen to listening—in a room with mirrored walls that makes me appreciate the infinity that is God.”

“When I get to the part about Jess kissing me on the Fourth of July and taking me to her beach house,I look at my father and wonder what it is like, seeing people only through a wall of glass. Never touching them.”

“This week or last week, I don't really care about it anymore. I write myself this later, I tell myself you let me go.”

“A thing which I regret, and which I will try to remedy some time, is that I have never in my life planted a walnut. Nobody does plant them nowadays—when you see a walnut it is almost invariably an old tree. If you plant a walnut you are planting it for your grandchildren, and who cares a damn for his grandchildren?”