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41 " They are dressed like skeletons, one with a knife sticking out of his chest. The boys always dress up like that, she has learned, as if they don't know that the scariest things are invisible. "
― Karen Thompson Walker , The Dreamers
42 " When one’s life seems broken beyond repair, there remains one last move: a person can at least shut her eyes. "
43 " Strangers with children are not so much like strangers—he doesn’t need to know them to know a lot about their lives. "
44 " This is how the sickness travels best: through all the same channels as do fondness and friendship and love. 24. "
45 " But even an infant’s brain can predict the rough path of a falling object in flight. And so, maybe, in a way, Ben can see what’s coming: His girl will love and be loved. She will suffer, and she will cause suffering. She will be known and unknown. She will be content and discontented. She will sometimes be lonely and sometimes less so. She will dream and be dreamed of. She will grieve and be grieved for. She will struggle and triumph and fail. There will be days of spectacular beauty, sublime and unearned. There will be moments of rapture. She will sometimes feel afraid. The sun will warm her face. The earth will ground her body. And her heart—now thrumming strong and steady, against her father’s chest, as he rocks her to sleep on a porch swing one evening in early summer, at the very start of a life—that heart: it will beat, and it will someday cease to beat. And so much of this life will remain always beyond her understanding, as obscure as the landscapes of someone else’s dreams. "