“Was there anything quite so painful, so fraught with the possibilities of hurt, as gift giving within a family?”

“Soon would come the night in which there was no more work not the work of the hands, nor the work of the mind, nor the work of the heart.”

“Still, for all that, her life had lacked passion. The demons had never come for her.”

“Were archaeologists really such a sex-starved lot as all that? Did pigs really sweat?”

“Education teaches children to lose interest in what matters most to them.”

“Just because you pretend the universe doesn't have teeth doesn't mean you won't get eaten in the end.”

“I believe that words are strong, that they can overwhelm what we fear when fear seems more awful than life is good.”

“Her question was clear-Father, where does the Loss reside?In the sighs?Cheeks with tears wiped?A lost appetite?Owning a room confined?Or in the smiles all falsified?Thus, the Father decide,It is no...”

“Find time for a private conversation with your creator so that you can ask Him about the purpose of your existence”

“Sex can be used either for self-affirmation or for self-transcendence either to intensify the ego and consolidate the social persona by some kind of conspicuous embarkation and heroic conquest, or...”

“He didn't know all that much about how the machinery worked anyway. Such knowledge was for specialists. In war, as in love, he was a fearless, happy-go-lucky adventurer.”

“If she did experience sex--or something close to it--in high school, I'm sure it would have been less out of sexual desire or love than literary curiosity.”