“When people got old, why did they always develop a passion for scrabbling in the earth? Were they trying to get used to it?”

“He read a lot. He used a lot of big words. I think maybe part of what got him into trouble was that he did too much thinking. Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often. A couple of times I tried to tell him it was a mistake to get too deep into that kind of stuff, but Alex got stuck on things. He always had to know the absolute right answer before he could go on to the next thing.”

“What was the point of loving when the people you loved were taken from you? When Death and Time were always looming and poised to strike, why did love exist?”

“Develop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you get old, people won’t think you’re going gaga.”

“Developing better people should be the number one goal for any coach when dealing with kids. In trying to develop better people, we are going to develop more and better pros.”

“I think maybe part of what got him into trouble was that he did too much thinking. Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often.”