“Bruce looked at David and David asked, “Is that Harold?”He was wearing the same Meadow Brook Basketball jacket and had only a few gray hairs left on his round head. Harold walked up to his two favorite players and exclaimed, “Give me five!” and he extended both hands and the guys lightly slapped his palms, as the other eight ex-players chuckled in the background.The cylinders started clicking in David’s mind as Harold said, “On the other side.”The guys lightly slapped the knuckle side of Harold’s hand as David said, “Oh, shit!”

“Laurel, David? Would you like to share the joke with the rest of the class?" he asked, one hand on his skinny hip."No, sir," David said. "But thank you for asking." The students around them laughed, but Mr. james didn't look pleased. Laurel leaned back and grinned. David, one. Teacher who wishes he was as smart as David? Zero”

“I asked Ring Lardner the other day how he writes his short stories, and he said he wrote a few widely separated words or phrases on a piece of paper and then went back and filled in the spaces. Harold Ross”

“His arms closed around them. While the storm raged outside,he held them protectively. Anna buried her face in one side of his neck,David in the other. His hands cupped the backs of their heads,pressing them closer.Things were hurled against the cellar door with such impetus that David's small fist gripped a handful of his shirt. And he knew that this was what mattered. They mattered. He mattered to them. All the rest of it all the rest of it evaporated into insignificance..”

“... He went under the stars, and the tender light of the moon, when it hung like an eyelash and the tree trunks shone like bones. He walked through wind and weather, and beneath sun-bleached skies. It seemed to Harold that he had been waiting all his life to walk. He no longer knew how far he had come, but only that he was going forward. The pale Cotswold stone became the red brick of Warwickshire, and the land flattened into middle England. Harold reached his hand to his mouth to brush away a fly, and felt a beard growing in thick tufts. Queenie would live. He knew it.”

“Holding my hands in his, David kissed my knuckles before he swore to me, “I will love every day of the rest of my life.”