“The war's [World War II] end has left America with loads of get-up-and-go, and no place to go. ”

“Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run. The daily work--that goes on, and it adds up. It goes into the ground, into crops, into children's bellies and their bright eyes. Good things don't get lost.”

“A woman knows she can walk away from a pot to tend something else and the pot will go on boiling; if she couldn't, this world would end at once.”

“It's frightening, she thinks, how when the going gets rough you fall back on whatever awful think you grew up with.”

“War so conspicuously benefits rich men and kills the poor ones.”

“There are some who'd hardly lift a finger for kindness, but they would haul up a load of rock to dump on some soul they think's been too lucky.”

“The pounding of What do I want went still in her breast. It didn't matter what she chose. The world was what it was, a place with its own rules of hunger and satisfaction. Creatures lived and mated and died, they came and went, as surely as summer did. They would go their own ways, of their own accord.”