“...No opening sermons concerning children with humps and fins for limbs, who nonetheless, immortal souls all, deserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happy Meals.”

“Yet who can say how our souls have been stamped by witnessing such a cruel drama? All souls are hostages to their human envelopes, but souls must decay and suffer at such indignity, don't you agree? ”

“...looking at him makes her feel like laughing all over - as if she could laugh not just with her mouth but with her eyes, her heart, her very limbs.”

“Children talk themselves out of their convictions as they grow up and become distracted by their huge selfish selves. All the literature is consistent on this point. Children begin to think they've imagined us.”

“How children love the broken thing! And a puzzle is for the piecing together, especially for the young, who still believe it can be done.”

“Immortality is a chancy thing; it cannot be promised or earned. Perhaps it cannot even be identified for what it is.”

“The boy does well enough," said Vicente. "A goose does not ask much of life, after all.""No," she admitted. "Those who ask much are more likely disappointed. We should all be as simple as the goose.”