Quotes from Daniel Wallace

For how could he live with himself, if indeed he did live at all, knowing that his life was so inextricably bound to others, knowing that he was not his own man? "So

I think," I say after a while, waiting for the right words to come, "that if a man could be said to be loved by his son, then I think that man could be considered great." For this is the only power I have, to bestow upon my father the mantle of greatness, a thing he sought in the wider world, but one that, in a surprise turn of events, was here at home all along.

He stayed up with the eye all night, staring into its shiny blueness, seeing himself within it, until the sun, rising above the tree line the next morning, seemed to him to be the shining eye of some forgotten god. T

Dying, he has that look dying people get in their eyes sometimes, happy and sad, tired and spiritually blessed, all at the same time.

To get better now would take more than a miracle; it would take a written excuse from Zeus himself, signed in triplicate and sent to every other deity who might lay claim to my father's withered body and soul.

You are a good dad," I say. "Thanks," he says, and his eyelids flutter a bit, as if he's heard what he's come to hear. This is what is meant by last words: they are keys to unlock the afterlife. They're not last words but passwords, and as soon as they're spoken you can go. "So.

In Specter, history becomes what never happened. People mess things up, forget and remember all the wrong things. What's left is fiction.

I'd caught him at a bad time in his life. And this was no fault of his own. It was simply that the world no longer held the magic that allowed him to live grandly within it.

because in my mind—in the memory that has lodged itself imperturbably in my mind, my father resembles Abraham Lincoln, a man with long arms and deep pockets and dark eyes...

This wasn't life, of course. This was life support. This was what the medical world had fashioned to take the place of Purgatory.

I'm not laughing. I'm not laughing at all. I'm doing the other thing.

All of a sudden my arms were full of the most fantastic life, frenetic, impossible to hold on to even if I'd wanted to, and I wanted to. But then all I was holding was the blanket, because my father had jumped into the river. And that's when I discovered my father hadn't been dying after all. He was changing, transforming himself into something new and different to carry his life forward.

My father gave me early indications that he would live forever. One

Lives have a way of getting on with themselves. But in the short run it will be hard.

To get in cars and drive down roads all over the country, all over the world, to drive just as slowly as the law will allow—although the law, especially as it pertains to speed limits, is not something Edward Bloom respects: twenty in town is too fast for him; the highways are madness. How can the world be seen at such speeds? Where do people need to go so badly they can't realize what is already here, outside the car window?

For this is the only power I have, to bestow upon my father the mantle of greatness, a thing he sought in the wider world, but one that, in a surprise turn of events, was here at home all along. "Ah

Non importa, la storia cambia sempre. Come tutte le storie, del resto. Tanto per cominciare nessuna storia è vera, i ricordi della gente hanno una sfumatura particolare, ne parlano al mattino perché, durante la notte, hanno ricordato qualcosa che non è mai accaduto, una bella storia da condividere con gli altri, un nuovo travisamento, una bugia inventata ogni giorno

Then there was a woman, in her mid-fifties about, who in almost every respect was perfectly normal. But this was the way with these people: in so many respects they were normal, there was just that one thing, that one terrible thing.

He was just changing, transforming himself into something new and different to carry his life forward in. All

The rest of his hair was dark and full and healthy, and his part was one long straight line of pinkish scalp, a country road across his head.

Dreams are what keep a man going, William, and already your father was dreaming empire. But looking at him on the day he left that town he was born in, you would have seen little more than a young, handsome boy with nothing but the clothes on his back and the holes in his shoes. You might not have actually seen the holes in his shoes, but they were there, William; the holes were there. "That

Rachel tried to slap Mrs. Samuels when she said this, but she wasn't really sure where her face was and she missed, terribly.

Heard it," I say. "You were supposed to stop me," he says, clearly exhausted after the telling. "How many breaths do I have left? You don't want me to waste them on twice-told jokes, do you?

Thanks," he says, and his eyelids flutter a bit, as if he's heard what he's come to hear. This is what is meant by last words: they are keys to unlock the afterlife. They're not last words but passwords, and as soon as they're spoken you can go.