In Kilanga, people knew nothing of things they might have had - a Frigidaire? a washer-dryer combination? Really, they'd sooner imagine a tree that could pull up its feet and go bake bread. It didn't occur to them to feel sorry for themselves.

You could love your crazy people, even admire them, instead of resenting that they're not self-sufficient.

Your dreams, what you hope for and all that, it's not separate from your life. It grows right up out of it.

You know what the issue is? Do you want to know? It's what these guys have decided to call America. They have the audacity to say, 'There, you sons of bitches, don't lay a finger on it. That is a finished product.'" "But any country is still in the making. Always. That's just history, people have to see that.

God, why does a mortal man have children? It is senseless to love anything this much.

It occurs to her that there is one thing about people you can never understand well enough: how entirely inside themselves they are.

There is something in us that loves certain disasters and the fever of this moment and surrendering to that.