“Mystical additions and subtractions always come out the way you want.”
“There is no division nor subtraction in the heart-arithmetic of a good mother. There are only addition and multiplication.”
“Life isn't just addition and subtraction. There's also the accumulation, the multiplication, of loss, of failure.”
“The process of change is made up of subtraction and addition. Taking something off and then puttin something on.”
“Had my life increased, or merely added to itself? There had been addition and subtraction in my life, but how much multiplication?”
“It's all very Italian (and decidedly un-American): to insist that doing the right thing is the most pleasurable thing, and that the act of consumption might be an act of addition rather than subtraction.”