“You shall find out how salt is the taste of another man's bread, and how hard is the way up and down another man's stairs.”

“Always leave a way out, unless you really want to find out how hard a man can fight when he’s nothing to lose.”

“Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.”

“God comes down in the evenings to chat with man, enjoy man's company and find out how man faired in the course of the day.”

“...be sure to wash every day, even if it is with your own spit; don't squat down to play marbles—you are not a boy, you know; don't pick people's flowers—you might catch something; don't throw stones at blackbirds, because it might not be a blackbird at all; this is how to make a bread pudding; this is how to make doukona; this is how to make pepper pot; this is how to make a good medicine for a cold; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child; this is how to catch a fish; this is how to throw back a fish you don't like, and that way something bad won't fall on you; this is how to bully a man; this is how a man bullies you; this is how to love a man; and if this doesn't work there are other ways, and if they don't work don't feel too bad about giving up; this is how to spit up in the air if you feel like it, and this is how to move quick so that it doesn't fall on you; this is how to make ends meet; always squeeze bread to make sure it's fresh; but what if the baker won't let me feel the bread?; you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won't let near the bread?”

“How do people come up with a date and a time to take life from another man? Who made them God?”