“... you "met" this Moneta ... or whatever her real name is ... in her past but your future ... in a meeting that's still to come”

“She [Beatrice] alone was still real for him, still implied meaning in the world, and beauty. Her nature became his landmark - what Melville would call, with more sobriety than we can now muster, his Greenwich Standard ...”

“Commander Lebedev wrote—‘After a communication session we invited Flight Engineer Savitskaya to the heavily laden table. We gave Sveta a blue floral print apron and told her, “ ‘Look, Sveta, even though you are a pilot and cosmonaut, you are still a woman first. Would you please do us the honor of being our hostess tonight?’ ““Ouch,” says Roth”

“I desperately want to talk to her now. I want to ask her who it was who so deftly crafted and shaped the legend that was our love.”

“In the beginning was the Word.In the end . . . past honor, past life, past caring . . .In the end will be the Word.”

“Sol had not known he was lonely until he met Sarai.”

“There would be no more offerings. Not this day. Not any day. Humankind had suffered enough for its love of gods, its long search for God. He thought of the many centuries in which his people, the Jews, had negotiated with God, complaining, bickering, decrying the unfairness of things but always - always - returning to obedience at whatever the cost. Generations dying in the ovens of hatred. Future generations scarred by the cold fires of radiation and renewed hatred.”