“However, Nick acted as much as possible under the circumstances, and that was rectifying — it brought with it enjoyment and a working faith. He had not gone counter to the axiom that in a case of doubt one was to hold off; for that applied to choice, and he had not at present the slightest pretension to choosing. He knew he was lifted along, that what he was doing was not first-rate, that nothing was settled by it and that if there was essentially a problem in his life it would only grow tougher with keeping. But if doing one's sum to-morrow instead of to-day does not make the sum easier it at least makes to-day so.”

“Like many white liberals, Ken sees the “whiteness” of his social life as more an accident of circumstance than a choice. He would welcome greater diversity in the neighbourhood. However, he does not consciously do enough work either in his social life or in the larger community to make that diversity possible.”

“Remember the Duomo," he said. "Bruneschelli just proceeded brick by brick. He never knew what he would do from one day to the next. He worked in faith, and according to the legend he never doubted that the next step to creating the world's first dome would be given to him in the moment that he needed it. He never saw the end from the beginning. None of us do.”

“The past was gone and the future had yet to unfold, and he knew he should focus his life on the present…yet his day-to-day existence suddenly struck him as endless and unbearable.”

“Once, he'd used it in song, but the songs in his heart had gone silent long ago, and he knew that one day so would his voice. A man with nothing inside him eventually had nothing to say.”

“He had no idea of how long his life would one day seem to have gone on; how daily present the absence of love would come to feel.“Just watch me,” he said.”