“I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.”

“So it has come, the day of testing. Without warning, without fanfare, it is here, and he is in the middle of it. In his chest his heart hammers so hard that it too, in its dumb way, must know. How will they stand up to the testing, he and his heart?”

“The sun kept on with its slipping away, and I thought how many small good things in the world might be resting on the shoulders of something terrible.”

“It's a wonderful epiphany: with a lie I can change reality; with a lie I can change the world.”

“Inspiration was a temperamental guest. It dropped in unannounced, then left without so much as a goodbye, slipping out a window in the dead of night or sauntering out the front door, leaving the house empty, drafty, and cold.”

“Wishes cannot be summoned up or kept away at will. They come from deeper within us than good or bad intentions. And they spring up unannounced.”