Stories you read when you're the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. Sometimes you'll forget precisely what happened, but if a story touches you it will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit.

His name is Marcus: he is four and a half and possesses that deep gravity and seriousness that only small children and mountain gorillas have ever been able to master.

That's the trouble with you young people. You think because you ain't been here long, you know everything. In my life I already forgot more than you ever know.

And, too ignorant to be scared, too young to be awed, Tristan Thorn traveled beyond the fields we know...

Yes, you're right. It's part of growing up, I suppose. You always have to leave something behind you.ü

Yes, you're right. It's part of growing up, I suppose. You always have to leave something behind you.

I wanted to shout down to him, to warn him that he was giving flowers to a monster, but I did not.