Where do we go when we die? He said.

I don’t know, the man said. Where are we now?

—Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain

What need is this

We follow into ramshackle towns . . .

Listening for a whistle

To call us by name,

Waiting for a night train

To carry us out.

—Marti Mihalyi, “Transience”

Never eat at a place called Mom’s, never play cards with a man named Doc, and never go to bed with anybody who’s got more troubles than you do.

—Nelson Algren

Character is fate.

—Heraclitus