“[The Founding Fathers] were not advocates for a monolithic notion of "God and Country," as promoters of a Christian America would now have us believe. They were precisely the opposite: the very prototypes, in fact, of the East Coast intellectuals we are always being warned against by today's religious right.”

“The United States of America was once a great nation... but this United States is not the one our founding fathers set out to build over 200 years ago. This United States stands for everything its citizens have fought against throughout its history: oppression, unwarranted violence against innocent and weaker countries or its own citizens, trampling of human rights, crooked legal systems, and socialism.”

“One thing I have to give Christians; were it not for Sunday, every day of the week would be a workday.”

“Have you hugged your book today?”

“The CallOut of the nothingness of sleep,The slow dreams of Eternity,There was a thunder on the deep:I came, because you called to me.I broke the Night's primeval bars,I dared the old abysmal curse,And flashed through ranks of frightened starsSuddenly on the universe!The eternal silences were broken;Hell became Heaven as I passed. --What shall I give you as a token,A sign that we have met, at last?I'll break and forge the stars anew,Shatter the heavens with a song;Immortal in my love for you,Because I love you, very strong.Your mouth shall mock the old and wise,Your laugh shall fill the world with flame,I'll write upon the shrinking skiesThe scarlet splendour of your name,Till Heaven cracks, and Hell thereunderDies in her ultimate mad fire,And darkness falls, with scornful thunder,On dreams of men and men's desire.Then only in the empty spaces,Death, walking very silently,Shall fear the glory of our facesThrough all the dark infinity.So, clothed about with perfect love,The eternal end shall find us one,Alone above the Night, aboveThe dust of the dead gods, alone.”

“Edda danced in the ballet. That was her job. 'Job' was not the word other people chose to describe what Edda did, but the right word nonetheless. Words were queer that way, Edda often thought. They classified things. In her case they could place someone in another dimension.”

“You will notice that what we are aiming at when we fall in love is a very strange paradox. The paradox consists of the fact that, when we fall in love, we are seeking to re-find all or some of the people to whom we were attached as children. On the other hand, we ask our beloved to correct all of the wrongs that these early parents or siblings inflicted upon us. So that love contains in it the contradiction: The attempt to return to the past and the attempt to undo the past.”