“She felt happy these days, yet there was always an undercurrent of sadness just below the surface”

“It's always like this after a few days here. I start to lose my bearings. The surface is one way, but then there are all these other things going on, sometimes going back decades, swirling undercurrents that I just don't understand. [p. 336]”

“She recognized the strange happiness that came from loving something without knowing why you did, that strange happiness that was sometimes so big that it felt like sadness. It was the way she felt when she looked at the stars.”

“I had no cause to be happy. I felt sad with a good reason, and it wouldn't be right to mess with that feeling. I thought I ought to just stay sad for a while.”

“She rarely lets me off the hook, holding me to a different standard of emotional intelligence than the other men in her life - even my Brothers. She allows them to behave like Gary, docilely going about their lives, content and happy and completely oblivious to the sticky, ugly things just a few inches below the surface of everything.”

“The memory of oppressed people is one thing that cannot be taken away, and for such people, with such memories, revolt is always an inch below the surface.”