“I remembered Nahadoth's lips on my throat and fought to suppress a shudder, only half succeeding. Death as a consequence of lying with a god wasn't something I had considered, but it did not surpri...”

“You are what your creators and experiences have made you, like every other being in this universe. Accept that and be done; I tire of your whining.”

“In the future, as in the present, as in the past, black people will build many new worlds.This is true. I will make it so. And you will help me.”

“He has come to seduce the god of seduction, and oh, has he come prepared.”

“How terrible to be a god of change and endure grief unending.”

“So here is why I write what I do: We all have futures. We all have pasts. We all have stories. And we all, every single one of us, no matter who we are and no matter whats been taken from us or wha...”

“I finally know the difference between pleasing and loving, obeying and respecting. It has taken me so many years to be okay with being different, and with being this alive, this intense. (xxvi)”

“Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.”

“Birthdays could be such a bummer when you were older than the country you lived in.”

“She would figure out how to get what she wanted, what she needed, even when her long lashes failed to convince, when her body was no longer young and beautiful. She'd be more than pretty, She'd be ...”

“Katherine feels that she must have learned something about marriage from being married before that is now working to her benefit. However, she doesn't know quite what it is, or how, actually, it wo...”

“My first interview was with eighty-eight-year-old folk artist Marcia Muth Your life does change as you get older, she told me. You get into whats important and whats not.”

“Those times are over and gone, and good-riddance to them, too. We were hopelessly high-spirited. Now we're the thick-waisted generation, dragging along our children behind us and carrying our paren...”