“We cannot choose, he thought, the people we're born into nor what they teach us. So that opposition exists, and appears to us as evil. It is part of life, and sorrow is its natural consequence.”

“Our stories are all we have. The only thing that can save us is to learn each other's stories. From beginning to end....For every life we know, we are expanded.”

“The country was so vast, of course, that one or a hundred or a thousand men could have very little effect. And how, anyway, could one fault a people bringing schools and churches and all the goods of industry? Still, there was always something about newcomers laying claim that made him uneasy, as though he were being robbed some way, or made to give over something he had never thought to value.”

“He thought, This country does attract fanatics and torment them.”

“She looked at him. He saw her tendrils of damp hair. He looked off, but he had never felt this thing so deep before, this need to speak, to say how far he had been swept from what is good, and the sense seemed doubtful and unmanly.”

“Its our actions that define us. What we choose. What we resist. What we're willing to die for.”

“He looked around, saw himself mirrored in that man walking back with his rifle. And suddenly, it seemed possible to him that we might love ourselves the most when we are suffering and seen to suffer. The pursuits of men seemed only the more shocking, if this were true.”