It should take you about four seconds to walk from here to the door. I'll give you two.

Thank God for family. And thank God for a couple thousand miles of distance. When everyone was home at the same time, I could generally take it for about half an hour before I retreated into the basement. Usually, Dad followed about ten minutes later. There’d be the mutual eye-rolling, and we’d settle down without a word, to read or watch TV. My father and I were both loners by disposition. We could sit in the same room for hours, not say five words to each other, and both be completely comfortable. It drove my mother crazy.

i walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away he doesn't expect to arrive.

Life is short. From here to that old car you know so well there is a stretch of twenty, twenty-five paces. It is a very short walk. Make those twenty-five steps. Now. Right now. Come just as you are. And we shall live happily ever after.

...if one had to think about every footstep one took, ordinary walking would be impossible.

We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return; prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only, as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again; if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man; then you are ready for a walk.

Have you ever noticed how, in all books, people coming into a room always gently close the door behind them? I suppose the reason for this is that if they closed the door in front of themselves they'd still be outside.

My mother forbade us to walk backwards. That is how the dead walk, she would say. Where did she get this idea? Perhaps from a bad translation. The dead, after all, do not walk backwards but they do walk behind us. They have no lungs and cannot call out but would love for us to turn around. They are victims of love, many of them.

She entered his life without knocking, as one might step into the wrong room because of its vague resemblance to one’s own. She stayed there forgetting the way out and quietly getting used to the strange creatures she found there

That's how I walk into rooms. I'm 35 years old, I am six feet tall. I lower myself, I go, "Hi. Knock knock." I say "knock, knock" out loud.

There was no warning, not even a knock. The door flew open, and he forgot his present aches and pains in anticipation of what lay in store. The figure that stood in the door was not that of an enemy. It was worse. It was his mother.

The human fetus is born upside down. But it is not true that a child becomes upright after birth. Observe the feet of children and young people when they are at rest. The feet are nearly always higher than the head, No matter how hard he may try, the growing boy, and particularly girl, cannot keep the feet down. The fetal position is very strong. It takes eighteen to twenty years for the feet finally to accept the ground as their normal home. It is my hypothesis that you can judge maturity exactly by the relationship of the feet to the ground.

My mother forbad us to walk backwards. That is how the dead walk, she would say. Where did she get this idea? Perhaps from a bad translation. The dead, after all, do not walk backwards but they do walk behind us. They have no lungs and cannot call out but would love for us to turn around. They are victims of love, many of them.

Preparation is key. You can’t wait until the door opens first and then get prepared. You have to be prepared so when the door opens, whatever opportunity presents itself, you’re ready to take advantage of it.