“Wash the bones, bring the body, leave the heart behind.”

“Come on, is your heart a sponge or a fist?”

“Zora was a woman of principle, an open atheist. At the age of thirteen, a priest had told her that animals had no souls, and she had said, "well then, fuck you, Pops," and walked out of church.”

“We were seventeen, furious at everything because we didn't know what else to do with the fact that the war was over.”

“I started to feel that nagging sense of shame again, an acute awareness of my own inability to share in his [my grandfather's] optimism.”

“Grandfather recently died. He died alone on a trip away from home in a town where no one expected him to be”

“Believe me, Doctor, if your life ends in suddenness you will be glad it did, and if it does not you will wish it had. You will want suddenness, Doctor.”