“I often felt we lived in a lighted house of glass, and that any moment some thin-lipped parchment face would peer through a carelessly unshaded window to obtain a free glimpse of things that the most jaded voyeur would have paid a small fortune to watch.”

“(As human beings) We see everything everything in a glass, darkly. Sometimes we can peer through the glass and catch a glimpse of what is on the other side. If we were to polish the glass clean, we'd see much more. But then we would no longer see ourselves.”

“Thankfully, the farmers understand my request that the children not be allowed to peer through the windows at me.It would be alarming for them to see me with their dolls, to see me using the knife on their faces. There are some things children never should see.”

“Sometimes I catch glimpses,through the windows,through the glass,life rushing,whirling,past.”

“I did not grasp all these details - and many more - right away. They came to my notice with time and as a result of necessity. I would be in the direst of dire straits, facing a bleak future, when some small thing, some detail, would transform itself and appear in my mind in a new light. It would no longer be the small thing it was before, but the most important thing in the world, the thing that would save my life. This happened time and again. How true it is that necessity is the mother of invention, how very true.”

“If we had paid attention, we would have understood there are some things in this world you cannot outrun.”