“To look at them, leaning against the counter in the tiny kitchen, is to understand the connection between farming, itself an act of blind faith, and religion. If you can believe in a year’s worth or corn or beans, it seems, you can believe in anything.”

“If a tiny flower can struggle and raise itself out of hard rocks to offer its beauty to the world, so can you." From The Cartesian Machine”

“You have to admit he's good looking," Bree pressed, leaning against my kitchen counter. "Of course I admit it. I'm not blind," I said, busily opening cans.”

“Let that be a lesson to you," chided Dixon. "Wanting or not wanting something to be so doesn't make is so--any more than repeating a lie makes it the truth.”

“It was a good thing to do—to ask her to help you,” Ted offered.“Yes, but was it the right thing?” Ted had many times in the past reminded Dixon that doing a good thing wasn’t the same as doing the right thing.”

“I used to believe, although I don't now, that growing and growing up are analogous, that both are inevitable and uncontrollable processes. Now it seems to me that growing up is governed by the will, that one can choose to become an adult, but only at given moments. These moments come along fairly infrequently -during crises in relationships, for example, or when one has been given the chance to start afresh somewhere- and one can ignore them or seize them.”

“My statement to Harris that his book contains much to admire is specious hyperbole. In The End of Faith, Harris rails against religious fundamentalism, which seems obvious, as well as against religious moderates, which seems intolerant.”