“In a family, what isn't spoken is what you listen for. But the noise of a family is to drown it out.”

“There could be no romance in the terrible possibility that Gretel Nissenbaum had fled on foot, alone, not to her family but simply to escape from her life; in what exigency of need, what despondency of spirit, no name might be given it by any who have not experienced it.”

“It was a very American story, somehow. 'Lost.' Each community had such stories. Possibly, each family.”

“The innocence of such children doesn't answer our deepest questions about this vale of tears to which we are condemned, but it helps to dispel them. That is the secret to family life.”

“Like a flame is real enough, isn't it, while it's burning?-even if there's a time it goes out?”

“Why should I want what's good for me?' Beatrice asked him, smiling. 'Is that what you want for yourself - only what's good for you?”

“There is an hour when you realize: here is what you have been given. More than this, you won't receive. And what this is, what your life has come to, will be taken from you. In time.”