“I must be very selfish, she thought, for I want to set nothing and no one right; all I want is to be left in peace to make what I can of this problem called life for myself and my children.”

“...Helen sipped peppermint schnapps and considered the world made of her design. My religion is keeping peace, she thought. It hadn't begun that way, was nothing she'd planned, but now she saw that's how it was. I just ran a grocery, she thought. I don't want this. I ain't the one to make the world right.”

“I have little left in myself -- I must have you. The world may laugh -- may call me absurd, selfish -- but it does not signify. My very soul demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame.”

“They don't matter. I thought I had to prove something, and I did, to myself. There's nothing left for me to prove. I can move on with my life.”

“The key is to understand that our children don't belong to us—they belong to God. Our goal as parents must not be limited by our own vision. I am a finite, sinful, selfish man. Why would I want to plan out my children's future when I can entrust them to the infinite, omnipotent, immutable, sovereign Lord of the universe? I don't want to tell God what to do with my children—I want Him to tell me!”

“There's not one good thought in that place. There's nothing but waste and want. I can feel his selfish cravings and an abyss of secrets I hope to never know.”