“Was she naked?" Lasher said. "To the waist," Cotsakis said. "From which direction?" Lasher said.”

“Was he at the movies to see a movie, she said, or maybe more narrowly, more essentially, simply to be at the movies?”

“Jessie was trying to read science fiction but nothing she read so far could begin to match ordinary life on this planet, she said, for sheer unimaginableness.”

“He said, "The word for moonlight is moonlight.”

“The future is always a wholeness, a sameness. We're all tall and happy there,' she said. 'This is why the future fails. It always fails. It can never be the cruel happy place we want to make it.”

“I'm not saying we shouldn't grieve. Just, why don't we put it in God's hands? she said. Why haven't we learned this, after all the evidence of all the dead? We're supposed to believe in God but then why don't we obey the laws of God's universe, which teach us how small we are and where we're all going to end up?”

“I'm completely aware of Matisse and what he said, that painters must begin by cutting out their tongues.”