“As paredes tem ouvidos. (Portuguese: The walls have ears.)”

“Grandfather looked away from me and out to sea, and when he spoke, it was as though he spoke to himself. “The obligations of normal human kindness – chesed, as the Hebrew has it – that we all owe. But there’s a kind of vanity in thinking you can nurse the world. There’s a kind of vanity in goodness.”I could hardly believe my ears. “But aren’t we supposed to be good?”“I’m not sure.” Grandfather’s voice was heavy. “I do know that we’re not good, and there’s a lot of truth to the saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

“We know you have a great mind and all, Mother, but you don’t have much sense.”

“We think because we have words, not the other way around. The more words we have, the better able we are to think conceptually.”

“Alas. What have we done to our good, bawdy, Anglo-Saxon four-letter words? ...We have blunted them so with overuse that they no longer have any real meaning for us. ...When will we be able to redeem our shock words? They have been turned to marshmallows. ...We no longer have anything to cry in time of crisis. 'Help!' we bleat. And no one hears us. 'Help' is another of those four-letter words that don't mean anything any more.”

“Some things have to be believed to be seen.”

“In my dreams, I never have an age.”