“We'll go to a place that's quiet and dry and talk about precious things.”

“Truth be told, John said, the one thing in this world I want more than anything else is a great big crowbar, to jimmy myself open and take whatever creature that's sitting inside and shake it clean like a rug and then rinse it in a cold, clear lake like up in Oregon, and then I want to put it under the sun to let it heal and dry and grow and sit and come to consciousness again with a clear and quiet mind.”

“You guys just wait and see. We'll stand taller than these mountains. We'll bare open our hearts for the world to grab. We'll see lights where there was dimness. We'll testify together to what we have seen and felt. Life will go on--all of us--crawling; stumbling, falling perhaps. But we will be the strong ones. Our hearts will shine brightly.”

“As you grow older, it becomes harder to feel 100 percent happy; you learn all the things that can go wrong, you become superstitious about tempting fate, about bringing disaster upon your life by accidentally feeling too good one day.”

“Human beings are the only animal that thinks they change who they are simply by moving to a different place. Birds migrate, but it’s not quite the same thing.”

“I curled myself into a ball and cried quietly, doing that thing that only young people can do, namely, feeling sorry for myself. Once you're past thirty you lose that ability; instead of feeling sorry for yourself you turn bitter.”

“I imagine I sow cuttings of Anna-Louise's hair, like the fine stems of dried flowers, and watch sunflowers grow from the cuttings. I imagine I bury a pocket calculator with liquid crystals spelling her name, then watch the earth shoot forth lightning bolts. 'We should open up a seafood house together,' Anna-Louise says when she wants to torture me. Now that's love. ”