“How many have to die before we will give up these dangerous toys?”

“Faith is a great thing, and really religious people would like us to believe that faith and knowing are the same thing, but I don't believe that myself. Because there are too many different ideas on the subject. What we know is this: When we die, one of two things happens. Either our souls and thoughts somehow survive the experience of dying or they don't. If they do, that opens up every possibility you could think of. If they don't, it's just blotto. The end.”

“But there was only that silence, as in the five or ten minutes before a vicious thundersquall strikes, when the purple heads stack up in the sky overhead and the light turns a queer purple-yellow and the wind dies completely.”

“Keeping up the fiction. You have to keep it up, sometimes, no matter how you feel.”

“The family exists for many reasons, but its most basic function may be to draw together after a member dies.”

“the only mortal sin is giving up.”

“Never before in his life had he understood how subjective, how plastic, time really is.”