“The sound of the pages turning was the sound of magic. The dry liquid feel of paper under fingertips was what magic felt like.”

“Any subject we exclude from fiction will drop from our culture's memory.”

“...real loneliness is having no one to miss. Think yourself lucky you've known something worth missing.”

“It was the word 'late' that did it. Such a stupid word to use of the dead, implying that they would be with us today if they hadn't happened to be delayed in traffic somewhere...”

“Jo claimed that the reason people survived breakups was that within days of the amputation, Mother Nature started reminding you of what you had been doing without, what could have been better, all ...”

“And it did me no good to recall particular conversations (if indeed these were particular conversations I was remembering so vividly, rather than inventions of my uneasy brain). Remembering clarifi...”

“Heaven would never be heaven without you.”

“Let your days become a fragrant song where heaven and earth continually collide”

“Heavens is here 'neath the mountain walls,In the song of the wind and the waterfalls,In the watchful stars that blanket the nightAnd the music of birds before the dawn light.Heaven is here in our m...”

“It seems to me that since I've had children, I've grown richer and deeper. They may have slowed down my writing for a while, but when I did write, I had more of a self to speak from.”

“It didn't matter that there was a war on our doorstep. She had things to do, places to be.”

“Stranger inside me, when you are born, I will give youa closed book and ask you never to read it, never rest, never forgive a man who wants to save you.”

“July 24, 6:03 A.M.The laundry was warm and the rafters were firm, and Michael Holzapfel jumped from the chair as if it were a cliff...Michael Holzapfel knew what he was doing. He killed himself for...”

“A book is a suicide postponed.”

“How much can you really trust the promise of a suicidal father?”