“Oggie sat facing us in a threadbare blazer and pajama bottoms, as if he'd been expecting company--just not pants-worthy company-- . . .”

“...so one day my mother sat me down and explained that I couldn't become an explorer because everything in the world had already been discovered. I'd been born in the wrong century, and I felt cheated.”

“Everything in the world had already been discovered. I'd been born in the wrong century, and I felt cheated.”

“I discovered Emerson's soporific qualities by falling asleep with my face in the book, drooling all over an essay called 'Self-Reliance'...”

“Stars, too, were time travelers. How many of those ancient points of light were the last echoes of suns now dead? How many had been born but their light not yet come this far? If all the suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us to realize we were alone? I had always known the sky was full of mysteries—but not until now had I realized how full of them the earth was.”

“I'd been born in the wrong century, and I felt cheated.”

“Sometimes you just need to go through a door.”