“Creation takes place through words, a series of 'And God Saids' bringing each new stage of life into being. Language is God's divine power made manifest in the world.”

“They WERE walking alongside the road, they WERE hit by a car, and now they ARE dead. It doesn't work. Are is present tense. Dead is -- well, dead is past, isn't it? Present tense modifying past; being modifying non-being. Language, in this instance" -- and here Miriam makes a garbled noise in her throat-- "fails.”

“What struck Celia most about young children was the intensity of their passions, life too new to be modulated, perspective a possession not yet acquired.”

“Miriam realizes she is a broken vessel, pieces of her scattered everywhere. She has been finding those pieces, in their many forms, and bringing them together so she can be whole again.”

“Rushing toward her are all the letters of the alphabet. Each one moves in its own way, X cartwheeling over and over, C hopping forward, M and N marching stiff-legged and resolute.”

“Equity, they came to realize, was not the same thing as equivalence, as evidenced by beside tables and snowflakes the world over.”

“While she eventually adjusts to the faded motivational posters featuring long-dead baby animals and the fifties-era reading books whose soporific effects have intensified with each decade of use she can't get it out of of her head that while she is speeding around in circles waiting to be told when to stop other kids are flying to the moon.”