“My mother had been in the Soviet whirlpool for eleven years by this point. Enough time, I imagine, to unlearn the bourgeois habits of her native Brooklyn, to accustom herself to the farting and sho...”

“The only way to learn who you are is to leave home.”

“Breaking your family's heart was the price you paid for rescuing your own.”

“Florence, listen to me carefully. He squeezed her hand. Take whatever that agent offers you. Give him what he wants, and dont ask too many questions. Get yourself an exit visa as soon as you can. T...”

“From the moment Julian entered the world, Florence had begun to conceive of life as separate from the aspects of its outward circumstances. Over and over, life renewed itself. Over and over, it mad...”

“Their courtship unfolded in two settings, a Russian reality overlaid with New York memories”

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”

“If I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and t...”

“I'm an Earth ecstatic, and my creed is simple: All life is sacred, life loves life, and we are capable of improving our behavior toward one another. As basic as that is, for me it's also tonic and ...”

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that youve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you sa...”

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there i...”

“The seeking of a mate shall be undertaken with due preparation and care. A life-bond should never be contemplated as a light thing--unlike a legal union or sanctified joining, the sealing of souls ...”

“I dont have cookie-cutter relationships, Rumi. Women arent iPhone apps that I download and discard!”

“In advising the heads of state to learn from tragedy rather than perpetuate its existence Robert Kennedy excalimed, "Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live." ...”