“When I was poor, I didn't know how big the world was and what a man's life could be. I was too ignorant to make my dreams big enough.”

“What was life asking of me? How could I respond when I didn't know the question?”

“Life," said Emerson, "consists in what a man is thinking all day." If that be so, then my life is nothing but a big intestine. I not only think about food all day, but I dream about it at night.”

“My family's big on denial. And if we denied something long enough, we thought it'd go away. I know that's not how it works, but we're in denial about that, too.”

“So all in all there wasn't anything really wrong with my life. Except that, like most everyone else's I knew about, it had a big gaping hole in it, an enormous emptiness, and I didn't know how to fill it or even know what belonged there.”

“That was when the world wasn't so big and I could see everywhere. It was when my father was a hero and not a human.”