“In Libya, you are made aware the whole time of the abandonment of things, the material leftovers of receding cultures”

“Like the culture that created me, I am receding into the past at a rate of knots. Soon I'll need a whole row of footnotes if anybody under thirty-five is going to comprehend the least thing I say.”

“We are made of stardust, our whole body consists of material that has been here before the beginning of time.”

“Against these forces -- an earth rotating, a sun lowering its angle in the sky, winds filling with rain and the geese arriving -- time is just a made-up thing, and recedes in importance, and should.”

“You can lose all them material things, Margaret, but when you got your culture inside...you can keep it with you wherever you go.”

“The key to liberation from the power of materialism is not an exodus from culture - abandoning Wall Street or leaving the wealth of the nation to others - but the grace of giving... Givers for God disarm the power of money. They invite God's grace to flow through them.”