"Human remains... what exactly did that mean? Was it a few hard bones and soft tissue? Clothes and accessories? Things solid and compact enough to fit inside a coffin? Or was it rather the intangible – the words we send out into the ether, the dreams we keep to...

"I really wanted to read. Though Huck was asleep, I could not chance his waking and discovering me with my face in an open book. Then I thought, how could he know that I was actually reading? ... At that moment the power of reading made itself clear and real to me. If...

Quote 1: She was scared a bit about moving, leaving Knoxville. I couldn't believe it. I told her there's trees, mountains, rivers, birds singing in your ears, we've got the whole rest of the world over there, other than people, which are just one thing. Going wherever...

Jane Eyre. It was an Oxford World's Classics edition. Similar to the one we owned and similarly worn from constant handling. There was a difference between a book that was regularly opened and a book that was not. The smell, the resistance of the spine, the ease with...

Quote 1: "The beauty of this city is too elemental, too fecund and raw, to be tamed by mere money. Though the financiers and bankers and dot.com millionaires hug the shoreline, their topiary palaces and towered developments will never conquer this landscape....

Quote 1: The weather stayed awful almost all of the time. Cold and brown and windy. But one day in the middle of April the sun came out and William and I walked out on the rocks–it was low tide–and then we walked to a closed store that was the only other building out...

"Will you look at us by the river! The whole restless mob of us on spread blankets in the dreamy briny sunshine skylarking and chiacking about for one day, one clear clean, sweet day in a good world in the midst of our living. Yachts run before an unfelt gust with...

The sky was clear – remarkably clear – and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed as a common pulse…To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world eastward is almost a palpable movement. The sensation may be caused by the panoramic glide of the stars past earthly objects, which is perceptible in a few minutes of stillness, or by the better outlook upon space that a hill affords, or by the wind, or by the solitude; but whatever be its origin the impression of riding along is vivid and abiding…

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Months passed, winter easing gently into place, as southern winters do. The sun, warm as a blanket, wrapped Kya’s shoulders, coaxing her deeper into the marsh…

Quote 1:  ‘Kierkegaard thinks that music begins where language ends,’ Finnegan said. ‘Beyond language—or when language reaches its peak—you get music.’  I considered that. ‘I can’t believe we’re talking about Kierkegaard,’ I said. ‘You’re not. I am. And the...