“He could build a city. Has a certain capacity. There’s a niche in his chestwhere a heart would fit perfectlyand he thinks if he could just maneuver one into place –well then, game over.”

“The park was the heart of the city. He had come to the city – and with a knowing in his blood – he had established himself at the heart of it. Everyday he looked at the heart of it; every day; he was so stunned and awed and overwhelmed that just to think about it made him sweat. There was something, in the center of the park, that he had discovered. It was a mystery although it was in a glass case for everybody to see and there was a typewritten card over it telling all about it. But there was something the card couldn't say and what it couldn't say was inside him. He could not show the mystery to just anybody; but he had to show it to somebody. Who he had to show it to was a special person. This person could not be from the city but he didn't know why. He knew he would know him when he saw him and that he would have to see him soon or the nerve inside him would grow so big that he would be forced to steal a car or rob a bank or jump out of a dark alley onto a woman.”

“His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was”

“He thought that he was sick in his heart if you could be sick in that place.”

“If he could just get rid of the harsh irritation of his conscious thinking, then he would be all right; then he would be at peace”

“Then he made one last effort to search in his heart for the place where his affection had rotted away, and he could not find it.”