You discovered yourself and what really mattered only after you passed through the lens of the fairy tale, imposed on every human female and male ali… - Jonathan Lethem

Dylan never met anyone who wasn't about to change immediately into someone else. His was a special talent for encountering persons about to shed one identity or disguise for another.

The alphabet Miss Poobner taught was represented on the wall above her head by a series of personified cartoonlike letters — Mr. A, Eating an Apple; Mrs. B, Buying a Broom; and so on — and something insipid about the parade of grinning letters defeated Dylan's will utterly.

There were days when no kid came out of his house without looking around. The week after Halloween had a quality both hungover and ominous, the light pitched, the sky smashed against the rooftops.