“There were times Ruma felt closer to her mother in death than she had in life, an intimacy born simply of thinking of her so often, of missing her. But she knew that this was an illusion, a mirage,...”

“The knowledge of death seemed present in both sistersit was something about the way they carried themselves, something that had broken too soon and had not mended, marking them in spite of their li...”

“...American book jackets reflect the spirit of country - little homogeneity, lots of diversity.”

“But death, too, had the power to awe, she knew this now-that a human being could be alive for years and years, thinking and breathing and eating, full of a million worries and feelings and thoughts...”

“She had generated alternative versions of herself. She had insisted at brutal cost on these conversions. Layering her life, only to strip it bare. Only to be alone in the end. Her life had been pai...”

“He still had the power to stagger her at timessimply the fact that he was breathing that all his organs were in their proper places that blood flowed quietly and effectively through his small sturd...”

“The best music I have ever heard is the sound of my daughters giggling.”

“... He spoke in the deep tenderness of one about to leave his treasure amid perils and foes, where his remembered words would be the only aid he could bequeath to guide her.”

“Her laughter was my favorite symphony.”

“Make a liberty without the instinctive duress.”

“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would...”

“The will of the people, moreover, practically means the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people; the majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majo...”