Oh,' she said. 'I have never seen a Jew before. Can I see his horns?

Compassion is a muscle that gets stronger with use, and the regular exercise of choosing kindness over cruelty would change us.

Or perhaps a widow found him and took him in: brought him an easy chair, changed his sweater every morning, shaved his face until the hair stopped growing, took him faithfully to bed with her every night, whispered sweet nothings into what was left of his ear, laughed with him over black coffee, cried with him over yellowing pictures, talked greenly about having kids of her own, began to miss him before she became sick, left him everything in her will, thought of only him as she died, always knew he was fiction but believed in him anyway.

This is love, she thought, isn't it? When you notice someone's absence and hate that absence more than anything? More, even, than you love his presence?

Whether we change our lives or do nothing, we have responded. To do nothing is to do something.

....Worthy would-be worlds of words, whorls of working wonder.

What's so horrible about being dead forever, and not feeling anything, and not even dreaming? What's so great about feeling and dreaming?