“God, why does a mortal man have children? It is senseless to love anything this much.”

“A novel! Why do you say this won't liberate anyone? Where does any man go to be free, whether he is poor or rich or even in prison? To Dostoyevsky! To Gogol!”

“But children robbed of love will dwell on magic.”

“God speaks for the silent man.”

“As long as we won't commit to knowing everything, the presumption is we know nothing...he did not claim that God moves in mysterious ways. Instead he seemed to believe, as she did, though they never could have discussed it, that everything else is in motion while God does not move at all. God sits still, perfectly at rest, the silver dollar at the bottom of the well, the question.”

“Does a man become a revolutionary out of the belief he's entitled to joy rather than submission?”

“Children can be your heartache. But that doesn't matter, you have to go on and have them . . . it works out.”