Iwalked along Gilman Street, the best street in town.

The houses
were as handsome and as unusual as I remembered. Clever
modernizations of old Colonial manses, extensions in Victorian
wood, capacious Greek Revival temples lined the street, as
impressive and just as forbidding as ever. Pg. 1

He began scrambling up the wooden pegs nailed to the side of the

tree, his back muscles working like a panthers. Pg. 4

How do you expect our boys to be as precise as that thousands

of feet up with bombs weighing tons! Look at what the Germans
did to Amsterdam! Look at what they did to Coventry! Pg. 10

Schools are supposed to be catacombed with secret societies and

underground brotherhoods, and as far as they knew here was one
which had just come to the surface. Pg. 13

We met every night, because Finnys life was ruled by inspiration

and anarchy, and so he prized a set of rules. Pg. 14

To escape the wolf pack which all the other players became he
created reverses and deceptions and acts of sheer mass hypnotism
which were so extraordinary that they surprised even him; after
some of these plays I would notice him chuckling quietly to
himself, in a kind of happy disbelief. Pg. 17

I noticed a preparatory looseness coming into his shoulders and

arms, a controlled ease about his stance which was unexpected in
anyone trying to break a record. Pg. 18

The tide was high and the surf was heavy. Pg. 20

The ocean, throwing up foaming sun-sprays across some nearby

rocks, was winter cold. This kind of sunshine and ocean, with the
accumulating roar of the surf and the salty, adventurous, flirting
wind from the sea, always intoxicated Phineas. Pg. 21

Very gradually, like one instrument after another being tentatively

rehearsed, beacons of color began to pierce the sky. The ocean
perked up a little from the reflection of these colored slivers in the
sky. Pg. 22

You and Phineas are even already. You are even in enmity. You
are both coldly driving ahead for yourselves alone. You did hate
him for breaking that school swimming record, but so what? Pg.
24

But when I looked in the mirror it was no remote aristocrat I had

become, no character out of daydreams. I was Phineas, Phineas to
the life. Pg. 29

Not of the tree and pain, but of one of his favorite tricks, Phineas
in exaltation, balancing on one foot on the prow of a canoe like a
river god, his raised arms invoking the air to support him, face
transfigured, body a complex set of balances and compensations,
each muscle aligned in perfection with all the others to maintain
this supreme fantasy of achievement, his skin glowing from
immersions, his whole body hanging between river and sky as
though he had transcended gravity and might by gently pushing
upward with his foot glide a little way higher and remain
suspended in space, encompassing all the glory of the summer and
offering it to the sky. Pg. 36

Until the back of my hand cracked against Quackenbushs face I

had never pictured myself in the role of Finnys defender, and I
didnt suppose that he would have thanked me for it now. Pg 39

But in the pause I took before replying he started talking in his

lighthearted way again. He never let a dull spot appear in
conversation if he could help it. Pg 43

But this was a clue they soon seemed to forget. I detected no

Sherlock Holmes among them, nor even a Dr. Watson. No one
showed any interest in tracking me, no one pried, no one
insinuated. Pg 46

The school was thinly blanketed that night, but the next morning,
a bright, almost balmy day, every flake disappeared. Pg 47

Gray from the beginning, its end was announced by a deepening

gray, of sky, snow, faces, spirits. Pg 50
To slam the door impulsively on the past, to shed everything
down to my last bit of clothing, to break the pattern of my life
that complex design I had been weaving since birth with all its
dark threads, its unexplainable symbols set against a conventional
background of domestic white and schoolboy blue, all those
tangled strands which required the dexterity of a virtuoso to keep
flowingI yearned to take giant military shears to it, snap! bitten
off in an instant, and nothing left in my hands but spools of khaki
which could weave only a plain, flat, khaki design, however
twisted they might be. Pg 52

God was always unoccupied in Finnys universe, ready to lend an

ear any time at all. Pg 54

I could hardly believe it, but it was too plainly printed in the
closed expression of his face to mistake, too discernible beneath
the even tone of his voice: Phineas was shocked at the idea of my
leaving. Pg 56

But once you passed through the Colonial doorways, with only an
occasional fan window or low relief pillar to suggest that a certain
muted adornment was permissible, you entered an extravaganza of
Pompadour splendor. Pg 57