“I lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.”

“I wondered if the fire had been out to get me. I wondered if all fire was related, like Dad said all humans were related, if the fire that had burned me that day while I cooked hot dogs was somehow connected o the fire I had flushed down the toilet and the fire burning at the hotel. I didn't have the answers to those questions, but what I did know was that I lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.”

“If there was a volcano under their feet, a Vesuvius that could erupt and bury this modern-day Pompeii at any moment, the best thing to do was dance on it. ”

“A thing of beauty, like an approaching storm. It was hard not to respect, even though you knew it was likely to erupt any moment.”

“The Wonder of it All:Sitting there in your pajamas & all the time in the world & if I could keep any moment it would be this: watching you & holding my breath with the wonder of it all.”

“Maybe we were ghosts of a sort, spirits from the world that had died when the volcano erupted.”