“There is silence and then the familiar smack of Beatrice Muriels palm against her forehead. A love marriage, she says. In her opinion, love marriages border on the indecent. They signify a breakdow...”

“In these myriad ways, we carved out our lives in Los Angeles. Yet falling asleep was often an act of travel, taking me quickly by the hand so that I am instantly surrounded by verdant foliage, the ...”

“We play hide-and-seek, wade into her ponds to fill jam jars with writhing tadpoles, and cavort with her pack of dogs, named Brandy, Whiskey, Lager, so that just calling the pack makes one feel ligh...”

“Those less fortunate eat dried fish while the truly destitute fight with the spiny shells of crabs or lobsters. Decades later, my father will find it incomprehensible that Americans crave what in h...”

“There is a certain new ferocity in her eyes now. A certain new thing that was not there before. I recognize it as scar tissue. When a bone breaks, it heals stronger in the cracks. I realize this is...”

“Farther out beyond the reef, where the coral gives way to the true deep, at a certain time of day a tribe of flat silver fish gather in their thousands. To be there is to be surrounded by living sh...”

“War is what happens when language fails.”

“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”

“The world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them.”