“Miles, as in 'to go before I sleep'?”

“I walked to Montevallo.''Forty miles?!''Forty-two,' he corrected me. 'Well. Forty-two there. Forty-two back. Eight-two miles. No. Eight-four. Yes. Eighty-four miles in forty-five hours.''What the hell's in Montevallo?' I asked.'Not much. I just walked til I got too cold, and then I turned around.''You didn't sleep?''No, the dreams are terrible.”

“And then I was asleep. That deep, can-still-taste-her-in-my-mouth sleep, that sleep that is not particularly restful but difficult to wake up from all the same.”

“It is worth it to leave behing my minor life for grander maybes-Miles "Pudge”

“She would stay on the road and in hiding, a balloon floating through the sky, eating up hundreds of miles a day with a help of the perpetual tailwind.”

“Traveling, I am finding, teaches you a lot of things about yourself. For instance, I never thought myself to be the kind of person who pees into a mostly empty bottle of Bluefin energy drink while driving through South Carolina at seventy-seven miles per hour - but in face I am that kind of person.”

“You could hold me and I could hold you. And it would be so peaceful. Completely peaceful. Like the feeling of sleep, but awake in it together.”