“A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were ...”

“Courage and fear were one thing too.”

“Tom felt his darkness. His father was beautiful and clever, his mother was short and mathematically sure. Each of his brothers and sisters had looks or gifts or fortune. Tom loved all of them passi...”

“There's more beauty in truth, even if it is dreadful beauty.”

“Sometimes, a lie is told in kindness. I don't believe it ever works kindly. The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow, eating agony of a lie is never lost.”

“She planted that terror of debt so deeply in her children that even now, in a changed economic pattern where indebtedness is a part of living, I become restless when a bill is two days overdue. Oli...”

“Instead of communicating "I love you, so let me make life easy for you," I decided that my message needed to be something more along these lines: "I love you. I believe in you. I know what you're c...”

“Eric moved the broom experimentally and made an attempt to sweep the glass into the pan while it lay in the middle of the floor. Of course, the pan slid away. Eric scowled.I'd finally found somethi...”

“I gladly gave my aunt the privilege of scraping off all gum so my job wasnt as interesting or horrifying. I did find a few more menu drawings--a babys scribble, an elaborate tic-tac-toe board, and ...”

“I dont want any of this. I just want to be what I was before you showed up here and all hell broke loose. I want to be popular and dating the hottest guy in school. Now Im none of those things, and...”

“The prisoners of the cultures are mostly the women! House is the name of the prison!”

“Our own place is mall perhaps, but when your old man is eaten by his own shadow, you realise that maybe in every house, something so savage and sad and brilliant is standing up, without the world e...”

“There are many things that make a man irritable when he arrives home from work in the evening and a sensible wife will usually notice the storm-signals and will leave him alone until he simmers down.”

“Oblivion, she thought. That was the world she lived in. It was what they should name some countries, towns, and places.”

“A lot of men wouldn't like being called a romantic. It's not macho enough.'Quite often men are fools.”