“I think bourgeois fathers – wing-collar workers in pencil-striped pants, dignified, office-tied fathers, so different from young American veterans of today or from a happy, jobless Russian-born expatriate of fifteen years ago – will not understand my attitude toward our child. Whenever you held him up, replete with his warm formula and grave as an idol, and waited for the postlactic all-clear signal before making a horizontal baby of the vertical one, I used to take part both in your wait and in the tightness of his surfeit, which I exaggerated, therefore rather resenting your cheerful faith in the speedy dissipation of what I felt to be a painful oppression; and when, at last, the blunt little bubble did rise and burst in his solemn mouth, I used to experience a lovely relief as you, with a congratulatory murmur, bent low to deposit him in the white-rimmed twilight of his crib.”

“One day Bird had approached his father with this question; he was six years old: Father, where was I a hundred years before I was born? Where will I be a hundred years after I die? Father, what will happen to me when I die? Without a word, his young father had punched him in the mouth, broke two of his teeth and bloodied his face, and Bird forgot the fear of death.”

“I reached up to press a kiss to his cheek. "Do not be too angry with Father. He did not mean it not really." "Angry? I feel rather sorry for him. We are kindred spirits," he observed with a wry twist of his mouth. "How so?" "We both suffer because you will not understand how utterly essential you are to our happiness.”

“Were I to go down into the market-place, armed with the powers of witchcraft, and take a peasant by the shoulders and whisper to him, 'In your lifetime, have you known peace?' wait for his answer, shake his shoulders and transform him into his father, and ask him the same question, and transform him in his turn to his father, I would never hear the word 'Yes,' if I carried my questioning of the dead back for a thousand years. I would always hear, 'No, there was fear, there were our enemies without, our rulers within, there was prison, there was torture, there was violent death.”

“My earliest memories of my father are of seeing him work at his desk and realizing that he was happy. I did not know it then, but that was one of the most precious gifts a father can give his child.”

“I am not a child, and I know plenty of love. Love is wanting to be with that person for the rest of your life no matter of the consequences. Love is being willing to sacrifice your life for somebody else.” He met his father’s eyes, “Love is seeing the good in somebody regardless of their title or station in life. Love is so painful and yet so wonderful that it is worth it!” Emane pushed himself back up again from the table speaking deliberately. “Love is understanding that someday you might lose the person that you love, but that every day you get to spend with them is worth the risk. Love is taking the good with the bad.” His voice rose with each sentiment. “Love is trust. Love is wanting to understand even when you don’t.” Staring at his father, Emane added, “I know of love, Father, and I did not learn it from Ciera.”