“My parents...were people running from the past, who didn't look back at much if they could help it, and whose whole life always lay somewhere in the offing.”

“People want pretty much the same things: They wanted to be happy. Most young people seemed to think that those things lay somewhere in the future, while most older people believed they lay in the past.”

“The whole world seemed a maze of shifting mirrors in which I wandered alone, looking always and frenziedly for the exit back into my real life, where people had substance, did as they said they would, and were whole.”

“The past was always there, lived inside of you, and it helped to make you who you were. But it had to be placed in perspective. The past could not dominate the future.”

“...we lay there in the dark for a split second before the beast galumphed toward us. Meabh, always quick with a sword, sprang to her feet and charged the dragon head-on while I mostly just wondered who or what I'd offended in a past life that this one was peopled by dragons. Except I didn't have any past lives, so apparently I'd offended somebody in this life and was facing instant karma. That didn't really improve anything, in my ever so humble opinion.”

“I loved this-living as part of a community...Short of living on a commune, how could I import the feeling of belonging somewhere back into my own life? Quite simply, I could move back to California, where my family and oldest friends were. If I loved the city life but didn't fancy living across the country from everyone I loved, why not San Francisco? I wanted a life, and I no longer really equated life with work.”