Big Machine - Victor LaValle

• You made a promise in Cedar Rapids in 2002.
  Time to honor it.
• The driver pressed a button on the dashboard, which opened the bus door. Wind rushed in like water floods a sinking ship. People snatched their coats on. Snowflakes shot into the cabin, a blast of confetti that melted on the floor.
• Mysterious note, one-way ticket. Maybe I wasn't being singled out. This is the part that brought a little sorrow. How embarrassing. To be a grown man who still wishes the world would tell him he's special.
• My first instinct was to run outside screaming my questions into the wind, but I didn't want to make an ass of myself.
• Some people act like it's a sign of weakness if you want to belong, but I think most human beings yearn to find at least one open door in their lifetime.
• There's a look to people like us, no matter where we go. Like we've been pulled out of a fire, but not quick enough.
• "There is a voice whispering in the darkness. I have heard it. Everything it says is true. It's been talking to all of us, but the world is so noisy we can't make out the message. Not unless we go off somewhere, someplace remote and undisturbed and quiet."
• The picture of the poor is usually of one wild, chaotic lot. Loud, combative, quick to complain, but that isn't so, not in my experience. Just dip into that emergency room and watch every tired face; we've been there for half a day and have yet to receive treatment. Most will only heave and sigh, that's the extent of our rebellion. The poor are poor and we expect to stay that way. We don't like it, but what can you do? That's our attitude. The poor aren't defeated, we're domesticated. If the Dean had given us that tour, we simply would have become his pets. Disappearing was really the kindest thing he could have done. It forced us to face an important question. Would we flounder without his guidance, or would we step up?
• There are people who say life is dull. Just a series of mundane events. But I can't agree. Things happen. Bet on that.
• Seeing America by a bus is like touring the Louvre in a Porta Potti. And that's all that will ever need to be said about that.
• Your body's made to act, and once you finally let it, when your lungs turn to bellows that rouse the spark of life in your throat, that's when you'll breathe fire.
  
• “Doubt is the big machine. It grinds up the delusions of women and men.”