“You can remember it, he told himself, but you cannot experience it again like this. You have to be satisfied with the shadows.”

“He's satisfied with himself. If you have a soul you can't be satisfied.”

“He remembered that part like you’d remember a story someone told to you once, like you might nod in sympathy but it wasn’t like it happened to you.”

“A schlemihl is a schlemihl. What can you "make" out of one? What can one make out of himself? You reach a point, and Profane knew he had reached it, where you know how much you can and cannot do. But every now and again he got attacks of acute optimism.”

“There is no experience like having children.’ That’s all. There is no substitute for it. You cannot do it with a friend. You cannot do it with a lover. If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn how to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children.”

“You are a beloved child of God. But please remember this, too: You are human. You cannot expect to eat perfectly, look perfect, or be perfect. When you stumble, pick yourself up, even if you have to do it again and again.”