“The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.”

“Why does a man cry? he wondered. Not like a woman; not for that. Not for sentiment. A man cries over the loss of something, something alive. A man can cry over a sick animal that he knows won't make it. The death of a child: a man can cry for that. But not because things are sad.A man, he thought, cries not for the future or the past but for the present.”

“Truth, she thought. As terrible as death. But harder to find.”

“If you think this Universe is bad, you should see some of the others.”

“But the actual touch of her lingered, inside his heart. That remained. In all the years of his life ahead, the long years without her, with never seeing her or hearing from her or knowing anything about her, if she was alive or happy or dead or what, that touch stayed locked within him, sealed in himself, and never went away. That one touch of her hand.”

“It really seems to me that in the midst of great tragedy, there is always the horrible possibility that something terribly funny will happen.”

“That man indeed lives in a zone where no multiplicity can distress him and which is nevertheless the most active workshop of universal fulfillment.”