“Healing must always seek to give voice to suffering, and the greater the range of words and meanings we have at our disposal, the clearer the voice becomes. Iona Heath in BMJ 2000;320:125 ( 8 January) Review of the book Illness and Culture in the Postmodern Age by David Morris”

“Mother Goose will show newcomers to this world how astonishing, beautiful, capricious, dancy, eccentric, funny, goluptious, haphazard, intertwingled, joyous, kindly, loving, melodious, naughty, outrageous, pomsidillious, querimonious, romantic, silly, tremendous, unexpected, vertiginous, wonderful, x-citing, yo-heave-ho-ish, and zany it is.”

“When someone harms those whom we love, we must do as we must. And I had always loved Frannie.”

“It was easier to break promises when they weren't voiced.”

“It hurts to cry," she said, her voice raspy."It hurts worse not to.""Did you cry?""For four days straight.""Is that how long it took you to bury them?""Yes, ma'am," he said in a voice that sounded like stone grating against stone.”

“Knowledge curses us, if we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. And it becomes difficult to share our knowledge with others because we can't readily re-create our listener's state of mind.”

“You don't care what people think," he said.She couldn't tell from the way he emphasized the words if he was asking a question or making an observation. Still, she felt obliged to answer."Of course I care. To a certain extent we all care, but we can't care to the point that we live in fear of others' opinion, that we allow them to change who we are. We must be willing to stand up and defend what represents the very core of our being. Otherwise what is the purpose of individuality? We'd be nothing but imitations of each other, and I daresay we'd all be rather boring.”