"Even now, I still believe metamorphosis is the greatest beauty."
- David Vann
"History...to stand in a place and know that this where you come from for a dozen generations or maybe a hundred generations or maybe more. To know there was a great city two thousand years ago in this..."
"As if each of us might somehow have a blueprint. As if somewhere there's the shape of my life, and I had the chance to choose a few variations, but not far from the pattern."
"What would the world be like if men never ruled again?"
"A change in those moments, some switch turned off forever, the end of trust or safety or love, and how do we ever find the switch again?"
"Maybe this is as near as we can come to forgiveness. Not the past wiped away, nothing undone, but some willingness in the present, some recognition and embrace and slowing down."
"I've thought of it ever since, the idea that we don't stray far, that what feels like discovery is only the revealing of what was hidden but there, waiting. I remember because I think this might be a ..."
"There are no gods, only men."
"And only men could have invented the idea of a king."
"There can be no god without desire."