“Nothing is always there. Not courage, not joy, not hate or hope or anything else. We find courage, lose it, sometimes misplace it for years, and sometimes live in its grace for a while.”

“Courage is tricky, oily. Easy to drop, easy to misplace." "I thought that if you had courage you always had it.". . ."Lilah, nothing is always there. Not courage, not joy, not hate or hope or anything else. We find courage, lose it, sometimes misplace it for years, and sometimes live in its grace for a while.”

“That's called terror. Its confusion and a little paranoia and a nice big dose of panic.”

“No matter what choice you make, it doesn't define you. Not forever. People can make bad choices and change their minds and hearts and do good things later; just as people can make good choices and then turn around and walk a bad path. No choice we make lasts our whole life. It there's ever a choice you've made that you no longer agree with, you can make another choice . . . you can't change the past. Ah, but the future . . . you own the future. So, tell me . . . what choice do you want to make now?”

“I have sex," Grace shrugged.I meant with a man," Claudia said dryly.Now why would I ruin something so good by inviting a man along?" Grace asked.”

“Apparently Brooklyn needn't always push itself to be something else, something conscious and anxious, something pointed toward Manhattan.... Brooklyn might sometimes also be pleased, as here on Flatbush, to be its grubby, enduring self.”

“Sometimes the hardest thing any of us can hope for is finding the courage to be honest with ourselves.”