“... and that was when I learned that work gets done if you simply do it.”

“What young people didnt know, she thought, lying down beside this man, his hand on her shoulder, her arm; oh, what young people did not know. They did not know that lumpy, aged, and wrinkled bodies...”

“This is not the story of my marriage. I cannot tell that story: I cannot take hold of, or lay out for anyone, the many swamps and grasses and pockets of fresh air and dank air that have gone over us.”

“And then as the little plane climbed higher and Olive saw spread out below them fields of bright and tender green in this morning sun, farther out the coastline, the ocean shiny and almost flat, ti...”

“People always kept moving, her mother had said, it's the American way. Moving west, moving south, marrying up, marrying down, getting divorced - but moving...”

“society's been drugging its women for years”

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”

“All Earthquakes and Disasters are warnings theres too much corruption in the world ”

“Its only when youre at the bottom of the ladder that you ascend.”

“So many words get lost. They leave the mouth and lose their courage, wandering aimlessly until they are swept into the gutter like dead leaves. On rainy days, you can hear their chorus rushing past...”

“You can listen to silence, Reuven. I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own. It talks to me sometimes. I feel myself aliv...”

“Whoever is going to listen to the philosophers needs a considerable practice in listening.”