“It is true that I can trip over anything and nothing – a speck of dust, a patch of sunlight, an idea. I move through life like a person with one eye, through a landscape that looks flat, but is really tricked out with hidden depths and shallows. It didn’t use to be so, but no matter. I navigate the world well enough in my own way.”

“During climbs into taller trees, I was occasionally able to look down on the backs of birds, which shine with reflected sunlight as they move through the green depths of the canopy, like schools of fish.”

“On and on they flew, over the countryside parceled out in patches of green and brown, over roads and rivers winding through the landscapes like strips of matte and glossy ribbon.”

“Who are you, really? The question penetrated, echoed, demanded an answer. It nipped at me in ways I wasn't prepared for, pinched in places I didn't like. Was I really so entrenched in the world I'd been raised in, so set in my ways that I couldn't look beyond the surface of another person and see a human being? Was I that shallow?”

“I can trip falling UP the stairs. I can trip over nothing. My own two feet are fully capable of betraying me without any warning. They're vicious, really.”

“It's true that even though I'm a world unto myself, I've just a speck of dust in the avalanche of events. But nothing will ever force me to think like a speck of dust!”