“Go buy milk,' Robert said at last.Dylan moved for Buggy's door.But if ou come around here with that old lady's money next time I might have to take it off you.'Dylan recognized this as a sort of philosophical using. He was grateful for the implied sense of pooled information. He and Robert could move forward together from this point into whatever was required.”

“Not the man that I use to be. Wouldn't even recognize him now...if he was right here standing next to me. Just moving forward, pressing on down the roads helping all that I see... evoluting daily for the very good of me!”

“Cast off everything/everyone else has known for you./Move gratefully, from these old skins./And this time, if you toughen,/decide/for whom?”

“Did he ever--try?'Mingus shrugged. 'He was like you.'What's that mean?'Means he tried.'Of course. The ring was not a neutral tool. It judged its wearer: Aaron Doily flew drunkenly, and Dylan flew like a coward, only when it didn't matter, at the Windles' pond. So if had attuned to Robert Woolfolk's chaos.Don't tell me,' said Dylan. 'He flew sideways.'Mingus left it vague. He'd always made it his habit to protect their honor against one another--Dylan, Arthur, Robert. To say nothing.”

“This sort of obsessing would get him nowhere. He needed to move on, to get going, to look forward.”

“Instead, what I was beginning to understand was that however things unfolded from here on, whatever the next chapter was, my life could never be the sum of one circumstance. It would be determined, as it had always been, by my willingness to put one foot in front of the other, moving forward, come what may.”