Quotes from Rich Shapero

To be free means always leaving...or returning to a place where leaves never fall.

Would I be any less real if I lived only in your mind?

Bad dreams are things precious the soul fears it may lose.

Not that it matters, when you dream, there's no outside or in. Your mind is an unimaginable bloom. A willow catkin as big as the moon. With billions of anthers, shaking pollen like stars. It may seem strange, but in this boundless place --- You are not alone.

Is this what it's like? he wondered. When you're about to die? One hand stretched back to someone who cares for you, the other reaching for a place you can't see.

Every word was a cheat. Every thought and feeling was false. I played the game. Everything I touched, I cheapened.

Your brain is a forest, And the nerves are trees. When the branches touch, Snaps jumps between the leaves.

You'll find your way.

There's something beyond all this. We see hints in books and music.

Forgive us our fantasies. It's all we have.

There were ghosts in the wind, whispers from the snow or the invisible meltwater flowing beneath.

I don't want the void. I don't want fantasies. I want some- thing real—not another fragment of truth to puzzle over . . . .

The night sky was clear, but he drew clouds across it, combers that roiled like waves above him.

Some things take hold of you. Invade you. Own you. You want to be free of them, but you never will be.

You imagine you're kin to the stars. But the same sap that inflames you, freezes and splits you. And the older you grow, the deader at heart.

It isn't all omen, Wood. Tarot teaches us to see beyond surface effects. The falling man- While the Tower was a stronghold built to protect him, it has become a place of isolation, a prison from which the lightning has freed him. He's falling, but he hasn't landed. His future is unknown. If he survives, he will no longer dwell in the clouds. He will be part of the world.

I've always thought of school as a rehearsal. Not the main event.

Perhaps the sound had always been there—like the high-pitched twinkling when you sink your head in calm water, or the stirring in the gel of your eye when you fix on the sun.

Can one young man change a civilization?

Heaven is boundless, and the sea is beneath you.

Dorner leaned back in his chair, imagining what might have happened if he hadn't injected himself. The limbo of sleep, dark and secret— Drowning in the sea of voices. Not waking, not fighting. Letting them storm him without resisting.

He was a physical creature, a silver man, suspended in space, skin sheening as Tongue's singing winds streamed past.