“I went to watch the Buzkasgu game taking place on a series of fields - some fallow, some plowed and planted- just to the east of the empty Buddha niches. Buzkashi is a form of polo played with a dead goat instead of a ball.”

“How shall I raise dead men up to plow fields that are fallow? How shall I plant young olive trees?”Mikel smiled, and it was a beautiful smile. “One tree at a time,” He said.”

“I’d like to play a game of Marco Polo—in the 13th century.”

“They went around the room telling stories about how they'd gotten here. No two were exactly the same, but there was always a certain family resemblance. Somebody went looking for a lost ball in an alley, or a stray goat in a drainage ditch, or fallowed an inexplicable extra cable in the high school computer room which led to a server closet that had never been there before.”

“The other day I went to the Huddle House. I wasn’t hungry, I just wanted to call some plays.”

“There was a baseball game on but it didn't look real. It was guys in uniforms playing games on a deep green field. They were playing baseball as if baseball was important and as if all the world wasn't in jail, watching them from a completely different world.”