Her mind was present because she was always gone. Her hands were filled because they grasped the meaning of empty. Life was simple. Her husband returned and she served him with indifferent patience this time. When he asked what had happened to her heat for him, she gestured to the west. The sun was setting. The sky was a body of fire.

There are people who are always, I think, going to remain people of the book, to use another author's title, but people of the book, who really must be around.

But then as time passed, I learned the lesson that parents do early on. You fail sometimes. No matter how much you love your children, there are times you slip. There are moments you can't give, stutter, lose your temper, or simply lose face with the world, and you can't explain this to a child.

Time is the water in which we live, and we breathe it like fish. ... Time pours into us and then pours out again. In between the two pourings we live our destiny.

Sometimes a person's monstrosity seems superhuman.

In order to purify yourself, you have to understand yourself, Father Trais went on. Everything out in the world is also in you. Good, bad, evil, perfection, death, everything. So we study our souls.

The length of sky is just about the size of my ignorance. Pure and wide.