“When the dead departed, they took away any falsehoods that they might have allowed us to believe while alive; we who are left behind have to embark on a different life, since the dead are no longer...”

“There is a difference between being remembered and being caught by the mesh of one's mind.”

“I have spent much of my life turning away from the scripts given to me, in China and in America; my refusal to be defined by the will of others is my one and only political statement.”

“A real dreamer must have a mutual trust with time.”

“The weak-minded choose to hate," she said. "It's the least painful thing to do, isn't it?”

“I am not and autobiographical writer--one can't be without a solid and explicable self--and read all autobiographical writers with the same curiosity. What kind of life permits a person the right t...”

“I missed you, Angel. Not one day went by that I didn't feel you missing from my life. You haunted me to the point that I began to believe Hank had gone back on his oath and killed you. I couldn't e...”

“To live is to be haunted.”

“Yaicha is named after a songby some group from the last century called thePousette-Dart Band.Something about a girl, a candle in the falling rain shining amidst the pain.I kind of surprise myselfwh...”

“Stories you read when you're the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. Sometimes you'll forget precisely what happened, but if a story touches...”

“Of four infernal rivers that disgorge/ Into the burning Lake their baleful streams;/Abhorred Styx the flood of deadly hate,/Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;/Cocytus, nam'd of lamentation loud...”

“The silences after his last gasp were sung together by a blackbird. I lay there, my eyes unable to close. His were unable to open. I listed the places where I hurt, and how much. My loins felt ripp...”

“For the two of us, home isn't a place. It is a person. And we are finally home.”

“The vast and beautiful world is the home we share together.”

“I stood there a long while, staring at that tree. It looked so strongSo beautiful. Hurt right down the middleBut alive and well. Cee touched my shoulderLightly. Frank? Yes? Come on, brother. Let's ...”