“It was a thought, that. Not to attach yourself to a man, but to confront instead the open world, the wide fields of France and Spain, the ocean, anything. Not just to hitch a lift with the first fe...”

“Words had become overnight just little coins, insignificant and unfreighted, to be exchanged for ribbons, buttons, for an apple or an egg.”

“Things could change so entirely, in a heartbeat; the world could be made entirely anew, because someone was kind.”

“Because he wanted nothing from her; this was a generous, expansive feeling, unattached to the possibility of gratification; it was the simple happiness that came from knowing that one particular pe...”

“They call this war a cloud over the land. But they made the weather and then they stand in the rain and say 'Shit, it's raining!”

“Halfway home, the sky goes from dark gray to almost black and a loud thunder snap accompanies the first few raindrops that fall. Heavy, warm, big drops, they drench me in seconds, like an overturne...”

“For the rest of my life, Zanzibar will be the Swahili word for rain. The rain would drizzle, spit, mist, downpour, shower, torrent, gust, deluge and blast. At one point it hit the ground so hard it...”