“Even bloody and bruised, he had an odd sort of swagger, as if he crash-landed in giant air ships every day.”

“I'm fine!" Percy yelled out as he ran by, followed by a giant screaming bloody murder.”

“One difference between the West and the South, I came to realize in 1970, was this: in the South they remained convinced that they had bloodied their land with history. In California we did not believe that history could bloody the land, or even touch it.”

“He waved his bloody finger in a sort of thank-you.”

“He had the same empty confusion in his eyes that I saw in my mirror every morning, that odd sort of denial that only seems to come when the world decides to jump the rails without warning you first.”

“His whole mind and body seemed to be afflicted with an unbearable sensitivity, a sort of transparency, which made every movement, every sound, every contact, every word that he had to speak or listen to, an agony. Even in sleep he could not altogether escape form her image.”