Meg Rosoff

Things Happen and once they start happening you pretty much just to hold on for dear life and see where they drop you when they stop.

I'd like to think life has improved since 1850, despite the long hours we all seem to spend slaving over hot computers, but the psychological journeys remain the same - the search for love, identity, a meaningful place in the world.

I've been fired five times for having a bad attitude.

After all this time, I know exactly where I belong. Here. With Edmond. And that's how I live now.

Where's your dog?" Peter's voice came from within the gushing stream of water. Justin thought he must have misheard."Pardon?""Your dog.""Yes?""Isn't he with you today?" Justin looked at Peter."Ha bloody ha." Peter stuck his head out of the stream of water, features dripping. He smiled shyly. "I love greyhounds." Justin stared."My dog is imaginary.""Oh." Peter looked interested. "That's unusual." Justin put his head under the water. When he emerged, Peter was still looking at him."Less work," Peter offered, cheerily. "If the dog's imaginary, I mean. Not so much grooming, feeding, et cetera.

Each evening she held his head in her hands and ran her aching fingers thru the thick ruff of fur around his neck. He burrowed against her, sighing devotion.

Time erodes us all.

She frowned at him. 'You are in love with solitude.''Is there a better cure for the world than solitude?

If there was ever a more perfect day in the history of time it isn't one I've heard about.

Someday I'll understand more of these things. At the moment I just have to think them through. Not everything you want to know is explained properly on Google.

Gil has put his book down and is gazing at something inside his head.

Look, I say. You can't just let your thoughts float around in the ether and hope eventually they'll connect with something. It's absurd.No, it's not, Gil says. Lots of good things happen that way. Penicillin. Teflon. Smart dust. Something happens that you weren't expecting and it shifts the outcome completely. You have to be open to it. When I open my brain, I tell him, things bounce around and fall out. They don't connect with anything. Maybe I haven't got enough points of reference stored up yet.You're young, he says, that's probably it. When I let my thoughts float around, I trust that they'll latch on to something useful in the end or make an association I wouldn't necessarily have predicted. I'm trusting that they'll find the right thought to complete, all by themselves. The right bit of fact to ping. You have to trust your brain sometimes.

How doe we define the energy of thought versus the energy of action.