“Midville's best street was High Street. It was up on a hill. Not much of a hill, to tell the truth, but in that part of the state, the flat south-central part, hills are not taken for granted.”

“Life always seems to have worries, even if you own a big and beautiful house on the best street in town.”

“But dying's part of the wheel, right there next to being born. You can't pick out the pieces you like and leave the rest. Being part of the whole thing, that's the blessing.”

“Everything's a wheel, turning and turning, never stopping. The frogs is part of it, and the bugs, and the fish, and the wood thrush, too. And people. But never the same ones. Always coming in new, always growing and changing, and always moving on. That's the way it's supposed to be. That's the way it is.”

“...with white dawns and glaring moons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”

“But it's enough, just having this day. It's the knowing there's something different, something special up there waiting. It's the knowing you could choose to change your days--climb up there and throw yourself right down the throat of the only and last and greatest terrible secret in the world. Except you don't climb up.”

“No connection, you would agree. But things can come together in strange ways. The wood was at the center, the hub of the wheel. All wheels must have a hub. A ferris wheel has one, as the sun is the hub of the wheeling calendar. Fixed points they are, and best left undisturbed, for without them, nothing holds together. But sometimes people find this out too late.”