“The purpose of family is to preserve life,' Aunt Patti said. 'We treat family members the way we're supposed to treat everyone on the planet.”

“And that was the thing: you couldn't just stand there gawking at the world. A car slipped by. Then another. It was as if she'd stood frozen by the river of the world and gratefully stepped back into it, resuming her place... The world waited, cold, grim, alive, beautiful. There was no saying no to it.”

“Your generation has no sense of responsibility to a group, a calling higher than your own. You treat random friends like family and family like strangers. You want to dither your life away, pursuing one pleasure after another. That is not a path; that is a waste of life.”

“The greatest and most blessed thing in the Germanic life is the mythical, sensitive, yet strong, awakening. The fact is that we have again begun to dream our own primal dreams.”

“Darling, family can be the very devil in disguise. More powerful than any drug, more alluring than any sin. They can demand a loyalty that will rip your heart out and chew it up without the thought of an apology.”

“Now the uncle spoke up. 'This cannot be,' he said. 'The human being is designed for many things. Loneliness is not one of them.' ... Mrs. Ramani leaned into me, and said, as a statement of fact. 'We are not meant to go through this life alone.”

“What better way to prove that you understand a subject than to make money out of it?”