“Maybe the answer to all of his problems was nothing more than a darkened sky and a glittering city, a lofty perch above the world below. It seemed entirely possible that it was all just a matter of setting and location, and Peter wondered why he hadn't thought of it before.”

“Near his foot was a map of Gettysburg, and he looked down at the ridges and grooves running across the land. It wasn't just the nation that the war had divided; it was families as well. Everyone had been fighting for what they thought was right, no matter who was on the opposite side of the line, whether it was your father or your brother or your son. It was about issues and causes and ideas, and what more could you ask of a person, Peter thought, than to risk all that they were for all they believed they could be?”

“They were nearly to Annie's by now, and they made the rest of the trip in silence, Peter frowning out at the road with a look of deep concentration. Emma didn't blame him; after all, she'd insulted his entire system of beliefs. But how were you every supposed to get anywhere if you always stuck to the same route? He spent so much time charting out the world that he barely had a chance to get lost in it.”

“She wishes that it were true, all of it. That it were more than just a story. That is was their story.”

“That was the thing about playing with a band, Peter thought. There was always someone else to rescue you when it seemed certain you might fall behind. Only the solo acts left themselves open to those kinds of disasters.”

“Once," he says, "I was flying to California on the Fourth of July."She turns her head, just slightly."It was a clear night, and you could see all the little fireworks displays along the way, these tiny flares going off below, one town after another.”

“Around them the stubbled land was marked off by plaques and signs that explained to visitors what had happened here on a long-ago July day not unlike this one. But Peter already knew all they said and more. He looked around at the people with their noses tucked in brochures and guidebooks, and those trailing, sheeplike, after tour guides and park employees. He was used to feeling somewhat out of place most everywhere he went--at school or the barbershop, even at home, but here, where he knew everything, all the names and dates and facts, he somehow seemed to fit, and the knowledge of this welled up inside him. It was like he'd been born a blue flower in a field full of red ones and had only now been plunked down in a meadow so blue it might as well have been the ocean.”