“Wasting talent is a sin. Im not big on sin, but I know a sin when I see one staring me in the face. Im not big on sin, but I know a sin when I see one staring me in the face. Its just not courteous...”

“All the men I know add that hands that prepared it line. They must know its right complimentary, an incentive to keep the women cooking.”

“The choice was whether to be sad and foolish or sad and reasonable.”

“Neva ought to smile more. It breaks her anxiety into tiny pieces of joy you want to gather up and hand back to her in your palms, as if to say, See what you can make when you loose the reins.”

“Im serious, now let me know every time you see her cry. The thought brings me great joy. Hope.”

“I was that kind of tired you feel when youve spent a day in a hospital while a loved one undergoes surgery and comes through all right, the loved one, of course, being myself, and Christmas being t...”

“I finally know the difference between pleasing and loving, obeying and respecting. It has taken me so many years to be okay with being different, and with being this alive, this intense. (xxvi)”

“Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.”

“Birthdays could be such a bummer when you were older than the country you lived in.”

“For every inch of skin, there is memory. Devils are so made. Saints, too, if you believe in them. His humanity has been broken as an old walking stick that once held up a crippled man named Thomas....”

“It frightens me that I can't do anything sensible about it.""Are you scared that you'll wind up with a boring job where you have to see the same people every day and drink instant coffee?""I'm more...”

“She'd be dead before the memories and pain were finally gone; she knew it, accepted it, and dealt with it.”