“In the end we are all caught in devices of our own making. I believe that. In the end we are all caught.”

“In the end, we wear out our worries.”

“Time takes it all whether you want it to or not, time takes it all. Time bares it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again.”

“I believe these stories exist because we sometimes need to create unreal monsters and bogies to stand in for all the things we fear in our real lives: the parent who punches instead of kissing, the auto accident that takes a loved one, the cancer we one day discover living in our own bodies. If such terrible occurrences were acts of darkness, they might actually be easier to cope with. But instead of being dark, they have their own terrible brilliance. . . and none shine so bright as the acts of cruelty we sometimes perpetrate in our own families.”

“In the end we always wear out our worries. That’s what Wireman says.”

“Go now. Our journey is done. And may we meet again, in the clearing, at the end of the path.”

“That lesson suggests that in the end, we can only find peace in our human lives by accepting the will of the universe.”