“We are God’s gift to each other. Like a master composer, He brings all the instruments together, each with a different tone, each playing a different part, and He makes it turn out so beautifully.”

“We had been so close to missing each other, he and I. He had turned out to be the greatest gift of all.”

“How could you love us being together?" he asked me "We are nothing alike and we are not meant for each other and we drive each other crazy, you love that? How can you love that?" So I told him "I know that we're not meant for each other, that we drive each other crazy, and that we are so different. But that's us. That's what we have; a wild nonsense. We are not good together, but together we are bad for each other. I love us together this way just like this. Because even if it's no good, it's what we have! It's us.”

“We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game. And there is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others”

“We are here to abet creation and to witness it, to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but we notice each other's beautiful face and complex nature so that creation need not play to an empty house.”

“Every American is from somewhere else. Each is hated for what he brings that is different from the rest. We live in uneasy peace. But it is peace, for the most part. ”