“Young men ... learn practical skills that set is in good stead for lives as the husbands of wealthy and educated women: Strong Handshakes, Silence, Rudimentary Car Mechanics, How to Mow the Lawn, E...”

“Im never sad when a friend goes far away, because whichever city or country that friend goes to, they turn the place friendly. They turn a suspicious-looking name on the map into a place where a we...”

“I think it's swell that there are people you don't have to worry about when you don't see them for a long time, you don't have to wonder what they do, how they're getting along with themselves. You...”

“So she quit working to make sense of things we dont realise it, but its hard work we do almost every waking moment, building out thoughts and memories and actions around time, things that happened ...”

“[i]We were fighting so very hard and achieving so very little aside from staying alive. BUT THATS EVERYTHING, my father wrote to me, when I told him that in a letter.[/i]”

“What do you want, Mary Foxe? My husband?" I believe in him," she said slowly. I wondered if shed ever told him that, and if so, what he had to say about it. Someone you made up turns around and tel...”

“When we illuminate the road back to our ancestors, they have a way of reaching out, of manifesting themselves...sometimes even physically.”

“It is better to pray with a pure heart before the family altar than to perform gaudy ceremonies in a pagoda, clad in the robes of an unworthy bonze.”

“Our ancestors derived less from life than we do, but they also expected much less and were less intent on controlling the future. We are of the arrogant generations who believe a lasting happiness ...”

“Trying to get prosperity through prophet offering is running after shadows”

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”