Dave Eggers

When we pass by another person without telling them we love them it’s cruel and wrong and we all know this.

What are we allowed to do when we’re looking for things we’re required to do?

We cannot fathom why people would stand across the street, easily a hundred feet away, when they could be so close, near us.

‘Suckers.’ I tell Toph, thumbing toward those watching from so far away. It is important, I feel, that the boy knows what suckers look like.”

We’d have a motherfucking shitload of dogs! Horses. Peacocks. Oh to live among peacocks. I’d seen them once in person and they defied so many laws of color and gravity that they had to be made geniuses waiting to take over everything.

We’re best at the long high throws. Like when you take four or five steps and rip it— It’s almost like a shotput approach, the steps, four or five quick, one over the other, kind of sideways-like—and then you slash away with that fucker, it’s such a violent act, throwing that white thing, you’re first cradling it to your breast and then you whip that fucker as hard as you can while keeping it level, keeping it straight, but otherwise with everything you can send with it you whip that fucker like it had blades on it and you wanted it to cut straight through the paperblue sky like a screen, rip through it and have it be blood and back space beyond.

There are people who meet strangers and people, like me, who know only those they’ve known from birth

We sleep when we fall. We only sleep when we can’t move anymore. That’s juvenile. But it means everything. It’s the illusion of progress. Staying awake isn’t progress. The illusion is enough.

Ooh, look at me, I’m Dave, I’m writing a book! With all my thoughts in it. La la la!

Humans are divided between those who can still look through the eyes of youth and those who cannot. Though it causes me frequent pain, I find it very easy to place myself in the shoes of almost any boy, and can conjure my own youth with an ease that is troublesome.

— Mr. Churchill you were given a mission.

— Yes

— I want to have been given your mission. I want your place in world events, the centrality of it. You were born in the cradle of a catapult!

— You are wrong. I found my mission.

— I disagree.

— If you must.

— Tell me: where is my mission? Where are my bunkers and trenches, my goddamn Gallipoli?

I am sorry Chris is late this morning. I could make something up about an appointment or a sickness, but the fact is that we woke up late. Go figure

Best,

Brother of Toph.

The pain is not great. But the symbolism is disagreeable.