“Dignified refusal can only take you so far. Ask the Congolese.”

“I'll tell you why the six million matter so much: it is because the Jews are the chosen people. Forget the Cambodians, forget the American blacks, this is unique suffering. But I reject this idea. It is not a unique suffering. What about the twenty million under Stalin? It isn't better if you are killed for ideological reasons. Death is death. All death is suffering. Others have suffered too, and that is history, suffering.”

“But a book suggests conversation: one person is speaking to another, and audible sound is, or should be, natural to that exchange. So I read aloud with myself as the audience, and gave voice to another's words.”

“You must have been determined, I said. Well, no, no, you don't think of it like that, she said, you just find what you must do, and you do it.”

“I had hoped for grace," I said, "not immortality"I wonder why so many people view sickness as a moral test. It has nothing to do with morals or grace. It's a physical test, and usually we lose.”

“I deeply respect American sentimentality, the way one respects a wounded hippo. You must keep an eye on it, for you know it is deadly.”

“Things don't go away just because you choose to forget them.”