“We understand more than we know.”

“Nothing is more difficult than to understand the dead, I've found; but nothing is more dangerous than to ignore them.”

“We thought we had such problems. How were we to know we were happy?”

“But we still find the world astounding, we can't get enough of it; even as it shrivels, even as its many lights flicker and are extinguished (the tigers, the leopard frogs, the plunging dolphin flukes), flicker and are extinguished, by us, by us, we gaze and gaze. Where do you draw the line, between love and greed? We never did know, we always wanted more. We want to take it all in, for one last time, we want to eat the world with our eyes.”

“How were we to know we were happy?”

“Possible, impossible. What could be done? We thought we had such problems. How were we to know we were happy?”

“with shrunken fingerswe ate our oranges and bread,shivering in the parked car;though we know we had neverbeen there before,we knew we had been there before.”