I try to see the whole woman,' Eddie said to Hannah. 'Of course I recognize that she's old, but there are photographs - or the equivalent of photographs in one's imagination of anyone's life. A whole life, I mean. I can picture her when she was much younger than I am - because there are always gestures and expressions that are ingrained, ageless. An old woman doesn't see herself as an old woman, and neither do I. I try to see her her whole life in her. There's something so moving about someone's whole life.

Life forces enough final decisions on us. We should have the sense to avoid as many of the unnecessary ones as we can.

The powerful wind swept his hair away from his face; he leaned his chest into the wind, as if he stood on the deck of a ship heading into the wind, slicing through the waves of an ocean he’d not yet seen.

But I felt certain that if the world would stop indulging wars and famines and other perils, it would be possible for human beings to embarrass each other to death. Our self-destruction might take a little longer that way, but I believe it would be no less complete.

Lilly was not crazy. She left a serious suicide note. 'Sorry,' said the note. 'Just not big enough.

It is your responsibility to find fault with me, it is mine to hear you out. But don't expect me to change.

No one could have fathomed what a life he'd led, for it was chiefly a life lived in his mind.