“But maybe it's what the world needs. A little less sense, and a little more faith.”

“Silently he had moved within her until deep inside she opened like a flower.”

“All in all, I'd heard people do a lot of things with words. I'd heard them not say what they meant and I'd seen them not do what they said, but I'd never met a person who could speak so simply and ...”

“There was a patient who sat with her family in a circle around her, all holding hands. Sister Philomena asked if they would like to join her for prayers and they said yes, they would. They closed t...”

“The regrets about all she had let go flooded her. Where had all that enterprise gone? All that energy? Why had she never traveled? Or had more sex when she could? She had bleached and annihilated e...”

“I miss her all the time. I know in my head that she has gone. The only difference is that I am getting used to the pain. It's like discovering a great hole in the ground. To begin with, you forget ...”

“Above his head at street level, he saw an angled aileron of a scarlet Porsche, its jaunty fin more or less at the upper edge of his window frame. A pair of very soft, clean glistening black shoes a...”

“As we stood there, chest high in water, I felt like I was in the middle of my own romance novel.”

“I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it calls itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express my...”