Heroes of the Frontier

by Dave Eggers

To be American is to be blank, and a true American is truly blank.

She had been comfortable, and comfort is the death of the soul, which is by nature searching, insistent, unsatisfied.

She woke up ecstatic and went to bed reluctantly.

Give us one-third comfort and two-thirds chaos—that is balance.

Ohio, birthplace of most of the country’s presidents, was now home to most of its assholes.

That we can leave. That we have a right to leave. That very often we must leave. That only having left could she and her children achieve something like sublimity, that without movement there is no struggle, and without struggle there is no purpose, and without purpose there is nothing at all. She wanted to tell every mother, every father: There is meaning in motion.