“Though Valerie and Peter were dancing differently, their bodies moving in different ways, they were both doing the same dance. It was a jealousy dance, old as the human race”

“Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.”

“Human beings used to be molecules which could do many, many different sorts of dances, or decline to dance at all --as they pleased. My mother could do the waltz, the tango, the rumba....”

“...without disturbing the radiance which played and darted about the simple and lovely miracle of being two persons named Adam and Miranda, twenty four years old each, alive and on earth at the same moment: 'Are you in the mood for dancing?' and 'I'm always in the mood for dancing, Adam!' but there were things in the way, the day that ended with dancing was a long way to go.”

“The funny thing about writing is that whether you're doing well or doing it poorly, it looks the exact same. That's actually one of the main ways that writing is different from ballet dancing.”

“I believe in the complexity of the human story and that there’s no way you can tell that story in one way and say, This is it. Always there will be someone who can tell it differently depending on where they are standing; the same person telling the story will tell it differently. I think of that masquerade in Igbo festivals that dances in the public arena. The Igbo people say, If you want to see it well, you must not stand in one place. The masquerade is moving through this big arena. Dancing. If you’re rooted to a spot, you miss a lot of the grace. So you keep moving, and this is the way I think the world’s stories should be told—from many different perspectives.”