“Sometimes, in a tight game with runners on, digging in at short, ready to break with the ball, a peace I'd never felt before would paralyze the diamond. For a moment of eternal stillness I felt as if I were cocked at the very heart of the Midwest.”

“My nerves needed a break, not a reminder of how much trouble we were in. I prowled around, but it didn't help. I still felt like my skin was on too tight.”

“I wanted to play ball," he stated in a way that my body got very still and my eyes, already locked to his, became glued there. "It wasn't the money. It wasn't the fame. It was the game. The goddamned game. I didn't feel like I was breathin' right if I wasn't playin' or practicin'. Felt like life was still, someone hit pause, then I'd put on my pads and jersey and walk on the field and then everything would come alive. Dad and I were Eagles fans since I could remember. Puttin' that fuckin' jersey on, Christ, Laurie...Christ.”

“I felt peace, even though I was still scared to death. I thought that, whatever would happen to me - I could still be killed. I didn't know - and in what I'd already been through, God was in control.”

“Most people felt lost after high school. Sometimes I felt like I'd never really been found in the first place.”

“Sometimes she felt that her heart would ssurely break. But she knew that hearts did not literally break because their owners were unhappy - and foolish. How dreadfully foolish she had been. Yet she clung to the memories as to a lifeline.”