“A four-year-old has so little past, and he remembers almost none of it, neither the father he once had nor the house where he once lived. But he can feel the absences and feel them as sensation, l...”

“A gust of wind doesn't suddenly bang a door open. A clock doesn't chime. The phone doesn't ring. Yet in the next instant the stillness breaks as if it is crystal.”

“The limitless, lowering sky, the long stretches of motionless empty prairie, the silence, complete right down to the absence of birdsong -- who knows what decides a man to leave most of his words u...”

“When night comes on in a room lit by kerosene, any flicker of the flame can give the sense that darkness is about to triumph.”

“With so much unknown in this life, how little it takes for a face, a grove of trees, an outcropping of stone to become familiar.”

“Autumn has come to northeast Montana. The vapor of ones breath, the clarity of the stars, the smell of wood smoke, the stones underfoot that even a full day of sunlight wont warm- these all say the...”

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what...”

“His pen spoke more to her than he ever did.In the war of words, some are unwritten and some are unspoken.”

“How might I get over this? How would I be able to overlook the way he used to be with me? How could I overlook that his fingers touched my indiscernible soul before it twisted my nipples? How might...”

“If you are too weak to stand being hit and too stupid to avoid it, then you deserve more pain.”

“Tears shed for another person are not a sign of weakness. They are a sign of a pure heart.”

“Without you in my arms, I feel an emptiness in my soul. I find myself searching the crowds for your face - I know it's an impossibility, but I cannot help myself.”

“So its true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love.”