“The air seemed poisoned with fear and hatred. People eyed on another suspiciously, and the streets smelled of a silence that knotted your stomach.”

“People eyed one another suspiciously, and the streets smelled of a silence that knotted your stomach.”

“There was another silence, of the kind in which gray hairs seem to creep up on you.”

“Silence makes idiots seem wise even for a minute.”

“Six years later my mother's absence remained in the air around us, a deafening silence that I had not learned to stifle with words.”

“In those days, Christmas still retained a certain aura of magic and mystery. The powdery light of winter, the hopeful expressions of people who lived among shadows and silence, lent that setting a slight air of promise in which at least children and those who had learned the art of forgetting could still believe.”

“I was raised among books, making invisible friends in pages that seemed cast from dust and whose smell I carry on my hands to this day.”