“But what are they? Annie asked.An omphalos, probably, said Jacob.A what, dear? Melinda asked.A bellybutton of the world.I didnt know it had one.”

“ Im going to be a writer, he reminded Milo. And you wont need literature? Ill write my own.”

“By its nature a relationship was not an accomplishment. It was just a connection that happened to exist, for as long as it did exist.”

“Since he had given up men he had taken up geography. He visited a new sight or a new neighborhood nearly every weekend.”

“A year ago he had been in America. Two years ago he had been straight. Tonight he was underground, with the remains of the bogey man, lit by the torches of the children who had killed him.”

“Crisis the midwife of capitalism. The advisers arrive and say, My god, they have no predatory class here. It is an emergency! We must create one immediately. Let us arrange to give everything to a...”

“We prefer to imagine brutal wars and atrocities as events that "just happen" every now and then, much like tornadoes or lightning strikes; this metaphor suggests that we can't generalize from them,...”

“The people of Hiroshima went to work at once to restore human society in the aftermath of the great atomic flood. They were concerned to salvage their own lives, but in the process they also salvag...”

“Along with individual responsibility goes some societal responsibility to enable young people and their parents to do what they need to do. Otherwise, what is a society?”