“He sat leaning forward in the seat with his elbows on the empty seatback in front of him and his chin on his forearms and he watched the play with great intensity. He'd notion that there would be something in the story itself to tell him about the way the world was or was becoming but there was not. There was nothing in it at all.”

“She had already turned. She watched him in amazement as he made his way slowly across the lawn and into the house. Pandora stepped back for him, and we all watched in respectful silence as he sat down near the piano, his back to the front right leg of it, and his knees brought up and his head resting wearily on his folded arms. He closed his eyes."Sybelle," I asked, "would you play it for him? The Appassionata, again, if you would."And of course, she did.”

“He does this on purpose," Stephanie's mother said as they sat in the car, seat belts on and ready to go. They watched him appear at the front door, shrug into his jacket, tuck in his shirt, go to step out, and then pause."He looks like he's about to sneeze," Stephanie remarked.”

“If I could tell him just one thing, wherever he is, pass him one message, it would be this: he had something. Something to his thoughts, his ideas, the papers in his notebooks, the work we did in the garage. Beyond just a purity to his ideas, a sincerity to his belief, a genuine curiosity, a determination that, if he just sat there long enough, thought hard enough, failed enough times, he'd find a way in.”

“On into the void he flies, unafraid. There is nothing in mere absence that can cow him. Or loneliness. Or the lack of maps and charts. For he is his own path. And he sees by his own light. We watch him from a great distance. From a vantage point no less subjective, no less absolute. And so it's hard to tell whether he imposes himself on the emptiness, or becomes it.”

“He did not know that the new life would not be given him for nothing, that he would have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great suffering. But that is the beginning of a new story -- the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.”