“Since no one is perfect, it follows that all great deeds have been accomplished out of imperfection. Yet they were accomplished, somehow, all the same.”

“All the worry people expend over not existing after they die, yet nary a one ever seems to spare a moment to worry about not having existed before they were conceived. Or at all. After all, one sperm over and we would have been our sisters, and we'd never have been missed.”

“I'm not getting it all sorted, she worried. I'm not getting it right.You are brilliant, the Voice reassured her.It is imperfect.So are all things trapped in time. You are brilliant, nonetheless. How fortunate for Us that We thirst for glorious souls rather than faultless ones, or We should be parched indeed, and most lonely in Our perfect righteousness. Carry on imperfectly, shining Ista.”

“All the geniuses I ever met were so just part of the time. To qualify, you only have to be great once, you know. Once when it matters.”

“All great human deeds both consume and transform their doers. Consider an athlete,or a scientist, or an independent business creator. in service of their goals they lay down time and energy and many other choices and pleasures; in return, they become most truly themselves. A false destiny may be spotted by the fact that it consumes without transforming, without giving back the enlarged self. Becoming a parent is one of these basic human transformational deeds. By this act, we change our fundamental relationship with the universe- if nothing else, we lose our place as the pinnacle and end-point of evolution, and become a mere link. The demands of motherhood especially consume the old self, and replace it with something new, often better and wiser, sometimes wearier or disillusioned, or tense and terrified, certainly more self-knowing, but never the same again.”

“For Berry, you just be there, Whit. Be the one person in the wide green world she doesn't have to explain it to, because you were there and saw it all for yourself. Hand her a clean cloth if she cries or bleeds, and some warm thing for the pain that doubles her over. The time to hold her will come. This day isn't over yet.”

“I don't confuse greatness with perfection. To be great anyhow is…the higher achievement.”