“A driver had been sent to meet us. He was gray-haired, short, and nimble and introduced himself. "I am Patrick and so is every fourth man in Ireland, and the ones in between are named Sean or Mick or Finn, and I'll be driving you.”

“Do the other angels know what they are doing? Am I the only confused one? Maybe I am unfinished, an unfinished angel.”

“That night I kept thinking about Pandora's box. I wondered why someone would put a good thing as Hope in a box with sickness and kidnapping and murder. It was fortunate that it was there, though. If not, people would have the birds of sadness nesting in their hair all the time, because of nuclear war and the greenhouse effect and bombs and stabbings and lunatics.There must have been another box with all the good things in it, like sunshine and love and trees and all that. Who had the good fortune to open that one, and was there one bad thing down there in the bottom of the good box? Maybe it was Worry. Even when everything seems fine and good, I worry that something will go wrong and change everything.”

“Something I am wondering:if you cannot heardo you have no soundsin your head?Do you seea silent movie”

“Man needs bread and hyacinths: one to feed the body, and one to feed the soul.”

“You can't keep the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair.”

“Life is like a bowl of spaghetti. Every once in a while, you get a meatball.”