“Well, you’d better hope I am because the world was built by sociopaths, men willing to send a million innocent boys into battle to be chopped to screaming giblets, all so a banner can be raised over another piece of land with houses and markets and roads soon after.”

“And now my old dog is dead, and another I had after him, and my parents are dead, and that first world, that old house, is sold and lost, and the books I gathered there lost, or sold- but more books bought, and in another place, board by board and stone by stone, like a house, a true life built, and all because I was steadfast about one or two things: loving foxes, and poems, the blank piece of paper, and my own energy- and mostly the shimmering shoulders of the world that shrug carelessly over the fate of any individual that they may, the better, keep the Niles and Amazons flowing.”

“I Keep Six Honest Serving Men ..." I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew);Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who.I send them over land and sea, I send them east and west;But after they have worked for me, I give them all a rest.I let them rest from nine till five, For I am busy then,As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea, For they are hungry men.But different folk have different views; I know a person small—She keeps ten million serving-men,Who get no rest at all!She sends'em abroad on her own affairs, From the second she opens her eyes—One million Hows, two million Wheres,And seven million Whys!”

“Hang on. This Lord Voldything's back you say?... and now he's sending dismembers after you?... I see. Well that settles it, YOU CAN GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE BOY!”

“Or maybe they were just doing it for fun. A lark. Their religion is tolerant of extreme forms of recreation. Boys will be boys, after all, and sociopathic boys will be sociopathic.”

“Hope and Memory have one daughter and her name is Art, and she has built her dwelling far from the desperate field where men hang out their garments upon forked boughs to be banners of battle. O beloved daughter of Hope and Memory, be with me for a while.”