“This wide wide Heaven is about flathead nails and the soft down of new leaves, wide roller coaster rides and escaped marbles that fall then hang then take you somewhere you could never have imagined in your small-heaven dreams.”

“So there are cakes and pillows and colors galore, but underneath this more obvious patchwork quilt are places like a quiet room where you can go hold someone’s hand and not have to say anything. Give no story. Make no claim. Where you can live at the edge of your skin for as long as you wish. This wide wide heaven is about flat head nails and the soft down of new leaves, wild roller coaster rides and escaped marbles that fall, then hang, then take you somewhere you could never imagined in your small-heaven dreams.”

“Now I am in the place I call this wide wide Heaven because it includes all my simplest desires but also the most humble and grand. The word my grandfather uses is comfort.So there are cakes and pillows and colors galore, but underneath this more obvious patchwork quilt are places like a quiet room where you can go and hold someone's hand and not have to say anything. Give no story. Make no claim. Where you can live at the edge of your skin for as long as you wish. ”

“She was unaware that she was somewhat of a celebrity up in heaven. I had told people about her, what she did, how she observed moments of silence up and down the city and wrote small individual prayers in her journal, and the story had travelled so quickly that women lined up to know she had found where they’d been killed. She had fans in heaven.....Meanwhile, for us, she was doing important work, work that most people on Earth were too frightened even too contemplate.”

“I focused very hard on the dead geranium in his line of vision. I thought if I could make it bloom he would have his answer. In my heaven it bloomed. In my heaven geranium petals swirled in eddies up to my waist. On Earth nothing happened... I stood alone in a sea of bright petals.”

“Heaven wasn't perfect.”

“Do you ever think of her?' she asked.They were quiet again. All the time,' Ruth said. A chill ran down my spine. 'Sometimes I think she's lucky, you know. I hate this place.'Me too,' Ray said. 'But I've lived other places. This is just a temporary hell, not a permanent one.'You're not implying...'She's in heaven, if you believe in that stuff.'You don't?'I don't think so, no.'I do,' Ruth said. 'I don't mean la-la angel wing crap, but I do think there's a heaven.'Is she happy?'It is heaven, right?'But what does that mean?'The tea was stone-cold and the first bell had already rung. Ruth smiled into her cup. 'Well, as my dad would say, it means she's out of this shithole.'~pgs 82-83”