“I saw the days of the year stretching ahead like a series of bright, white boxes, and separating one box from another was sleep, like a black shade. Only for me, the long perspective of shades that set off one box from the next day had suddenly snapped up, and I could see day after day after day glaring ahead of me like a white, broad, infinitely desolate avenue.”

“But in life, a tragedy is not one long scream. It includes everything that led up to it. Hour after trivial hour, day after day, year after year, and then the sudden moment: the knife stab, the shell burst, the plummet of the car from a bridge.”

“I see America, not in the setting sun of a black night of despair ahead of us, I see America in the crimson light of a rising sun fresh from the burning, creative hand of God. I see great days ahead, great days possible to men and women of will and vision”

“Every single day was just a box on the calendar that I could put a red X through; each one brought me closer to Lucas and to liberty.”

“I wonder if she’s infatuated enough to let me lock her in a box with me on a cool fall day and make love like America depends on us.”

“The sun will sink lower soon enough, turning the fields into open black space, ushering another day out, another day in--one after the next.”