“And so now, having been born, I'm going to rewind the film, so that my pink blanket flies off, my crib scoots across the floor as my umbilical cord reattaches, and I cry out as I'm sucked back between my mother's legs. She gets really fat again. Then back some more as a spoon stops swinging and a thermometer goes back into its velvet case. Sputnik chases its rocket trail back to the launching pad and polio stalks the land. There's a quick shot of my father as a twenty-year-old clarinetist, playing an Artie Shaw number into the phone, and then he's in church, age eight, being scandalized by the price of candles; and next my grandfather is untaping his first U.S. dollar bill over a cash register in 1931. Then we're out of America completely; we're in the middle of the ocean, the sound track sounding funny in reverse. A steamship appears, and up on a deck a lifeboat is curiously rocking; but then the boat docks, stern first, and we're up on dry land again, where the film unspools, back at the beginning...”

“We're none of us quite so sure of our place in the world that we can't be rocked off our feet by bad times. It's the getting back up again that counts. Not that you fall, but getting back up again counts for more in the long run.”

“She rolls her eyes. 'Will, this date is going to be my suck for the day if you don't become a little more talkative.'I laugh. 'Yes, we're going to Club N9NE. Yes, we're going to dinner first. Yes, I wrote a slam for you. Yes, we're leaving the club early so we can go back to my house and hardcore make out in the dark.''You just became my sweet,' she says.”

“When they finally allowed the horses to slow to a walk, Vree dropped out of the saddle to stretch her legs. *We're going to forget how to get anywhere on our own two feet. Gonna end up looking like fat-assed officers.*Vree arched her back, rocked forward, then arched it again, working the stiffness out of her shoulders. *Giving the pounding it's taking, if my ass is getting fat, it's in self-defense.*”

“Get out!" He dodges the pillow I throw at him. "Go away! There's nothing left for you here!" I start to shake, furious with him. "She's not coming back! She's never ever coming back here again!" I grab another pillow and get to my feet to improve my aim. Out of nowhere, the tears begin to pour down my cheeks. "She's dead." I clutch my middle to dull the pain. Sink down on my heels, rocking the pillow, crying. "She's dead, you stupid cat. She's dead.”

“I look back over the events of my life and see the hands that carried Moses to his grave lifting me out of mine. In remembering I go back to these places where God met me and I meet him again and I lay my head on his breast, and he shows me the land beyond the Jordan and I suck into my lungs the fragrance of his breath, the power of his presence.”