“Mr, B, what's wrong with me?"[...]"Nothing. You're smart enough to know you don't have all the answers, that's all.”

“You're a kid trying to figure out the world you were born into, that's all.”

“When does the enchantment start?We were sitting side by side, facing the mountains."It started when the earth was born." Her eyes was closed. Her face was golden in the setting sun. "It never stops. It is, always. It's just here."So what do we do?"She smiled. "That's the secret." Her cupped hands rested in her lap. "We do nothing. Or as close to nothing as we can." Her face turned slowly to me, though her eyes remained closed. "Have you ever done nothing?"I laughed. "My mother thinks I do it all the time.""Don't tell her I said so, but your mother is wrong." She turned back to the sun. "It's really hard to do nothing totally. Even just sitting here, like this, our bodies are churning, our minds are chattering. There's a whole commotion going on inside of us.""That's bad?" I said."It's bad if we want to know what's going on outside ourselves.""Don't we have eyes and ears for that?"She nodded. "They're okay most of the time. But sometimes they just get in the way. The earth is speaking to us, but we can't hear because of all the racket our senses are making. Sometimes we need to erase them, erase our senses. Then maybe the earth will touch us. The universe will speak. The stars will whisper.”

“He wagged his finger in my face. "You're not SUPPOSED to do anything. YOU'RE the one trying to change ME. Remember? As far as I'M concerned, YOU can do anything you want.""Except criticize you.""Hey," he said, "if that's how you want to spend your life, getting on my case"--he threw out his arms--"be my guest." He turned his deep blue eyes on me. "And anyway--" He let it hang there. He was smirking.Suddenly I felt as if I were on roller skates. "What?""I know why you're doing it."I stopped. He walked on."Doing what?" I said. "What? Why?" I think I was babbling.He flipped his answer as blithely as a candy wrapper over his shoulder: "You know.”

“You are truly focused when you're so focused that you don't know you're focused.”

“You’ll know her more by your questions than by her answers. Keep looking at her long enough. One day you might see someone you know.”

“He stared at me. "She liked you, boy." The intensity of his voice and eyes made me blink."Yes," I said."She did it for you, you know.""What?""Gave up her self, for a while there. She loved you that much. What an incredibly lucky kid you were."I could not look at him. "I know."He shook his head with a wistful sadness. "No, you don't. You can't know yet. Maybe someday..."I knew he was tempted to say more. Probably to tell me how stupid I was, how cowardly, that I blew the bestchance I would ever have. But his smile returned, and his eyes were tender again, and nothing harsherthan cherry smoke came out of his mouth.”