“Telling a story ain’t hard,” Lettie had said. “All you need is a beginning, middle, and end.”But that was the problem. I was all middle. I’d always been between the last place and the next. How was I supposed to come up with a story for Sister Redempta or even a “Remember when…” to reminisce on with somebody else?”

“I don’t know if you have had the same experience, but the snag I always come up against when I’m telling a story is this dashed difficult problem of where to begin it.”

“Our story has three parts: a beginning, a middle, and an end. And although this is the way all stories unfold, I still can't believe that ours didn't go on forever.”

“The Beginning of the End can feel a lot like the middle when you are living in it. When I was a kid I couldn't see any of these ridges. It was only after Swamplandia!'s fall that time folded into a story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending. If you're short on time, that would be the two-word version of our story: we fell.”

“We all — in the end — die in medias res. In the middle of a story. Of many stories.”

“If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending...But if it's a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone.You don't tell a story only to yourself. There's always someone else. Even when there is no one.”