The Silver Arrow

by Lev Grossman

For a certain kind of person there is literally nothing nicer than eating breakfast by yourself on a moving train with a good book.

children had just come roaring into their subway station—but they never looked up from their phones. Not once. They never noticed. It’s like they’re awake but they’re asleep, Kate thought. She swore silently to herself that she would try to never be that asleep herself.

But she was just distracting herself. That was something the animals never did, she realized. People looked down on animals, but animals never made excuses or felt sorry for themselves. It would never occur to them.

They always

looked problems in ...

When you’re a child the adult world looks so exciting, and it is, but it’s also so much sadder and more complicated than you expect. And you can’t just take the good parts, you have to take it all, even if it’s not what you wanted.

“Hate is a human thing,” the fishing cat said.

“Just promise me you won’t give up. The world has lost its old balance, but it’s not too late. It could still find a new one.”

Animals never think about what might have been, or what should have been. We only ever think about what really is.”

“Even when you’re home, even when you’re standing still, going nowhere, you’re still traveling in time. For every second that goes by you’re traveling one second into the future. Every second of every day you’re going somewhere you’ve never been before. The adventure never ends!”