In revenge, however, my memory of the past has closed the door against me more and more. I could have returned at first, had human beings allowed it, through an archway as wide as the span of heaven over the earth, but as I spurred myself on in my forced career, the opening narrowed and shrank behind me; I felt more comfortable in the world of men and fitted it better; the strong wind that blew after me out of my past began to slacken; today it is only a gentle puff of air that plays around my heels; and the opening in the distance, through which it comes and through which I once came myself, has grown so small that, even if my strength and my will power sufficed to get me back to it, I should have to scrape the very skin from my body to crawl through. --Kafka, "A Report to an Academy."

To William Maxwell

Coming back from Boston, Jack drove, his baby son slept in a Carry-Cot on the front seat beside him, and in the back seat Clare sang to their girl, Jo, age two. ("Walter Briggs")

We in America need ceremonies, is I suppose, sailor, the point of what I have written. ("Packed Dirt, Churchgoing, A Dying Cat, A Traded Car")