“On my first evening in the back country, I skipped down the porch steps of the farmhouse-leaving my father inside and the radio playing and my small suitcase decorated with neon flower stickers unpacked-and wandered towards the upside-down school bus I'd spied from an upstairs window.”

“zaraz potem w różnych miejscach pastwiska pojawiły się drobne, jasne rozbłyski, cytrynowe punkciki. nadleciały robaczki świętojańskie, tak jak obiecywał ojciec. obserwowałam je z otwartymi ustami, nerwowo wycierając dłonie o sukienkę. miałam ochotę wybiec z autobusu, żeby się z nimi przywitać, tymczasem to one dołączyły do mnie. gromady maleńkich światełek wlatywały przez wybite okna i ożywiały ponure wnętrze wraku...”

“but then she did. she died. no more visits, no more phone calls. And without even realizing it, I began to drift, as if my roots had been pulled, as if I were floating down some side branch of a river.”

“But my father, a thief in many ways, had robbed me of my concentration.”

“Morrie talked about his most fearful moments, when he felt his chest locked in heaving surges or when he wasn't sure where his next breath would come from. These horrifying times, he said, and his first emotions were horror, fear, anxiety. But once he recognized the feel of those emotions, their texture, their moisture, the shiver down the back, the quick flash of heat that crosses your brain - then he was able to say, "Okay,. This is fear. Step away from it. Step away.”

“And I suppose tapes are a desperate attempt to steal something from Death's suitcase.”

“My mother was French Protestant, and my father was Italian Catholic, and their union was an excess of God, guilt and sauce.”