“I had a terrible vision: I saw an encyclopedia walk up to a polymath and open him up.”

“There was an omnivorous intellect that won him the family sobriquet of Walking Encyclopedia.”

“Eighteen is a terrible age, and while I walked around with the conviction that I was somehow more grown-up than my classmates, the truth was that I had merely found a different way of being young.”

“It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength. ”

“I could smell something. Fear.I could taste it now.It tasted like blood in my mouth, and I could feel it slide through me and open me up when I saw him ...”

“One night I dreamed of an angel: I walked into a huge, empty bar and saw him sitting in a corner with his elbows on the table and a cup of milky coffee in front of him. She’s the love of your life, he said, looking up at me, and the force of his gaze, the fire in his eyes, threw me right across the room. I started shouting, Waiter, waiter, then opened my eyes and escaped from that miserable dream. Other nights I didn’t dream of anyone, but I woke up in tears.”