Which of us can resist the temptation of being thought indispensable?

A truth should exist, it should not be used like this. If I love you is that a fact or a weapon?

I was sand, I was snow—written on, rewritten, smoothed over.

Children were vehicles for passing things along. These things could be kingdoms, rich wedding gifts, stories, grudges, blood feuds. Through children, alliances were forged; through children, wrongs were avenged. To have a child was to set loose a force in the world.

Why are you so interested in amoebas?" "Oh, they're immortal," he said, "and sort of shapeless and flexible. Being a person is getting too complicated.

The reason they invented coffins, to lock the dead in, preserve them, they put makeup on them; they didn't want them spreading or changing into anything else. The stone with the name and date was on them to weight them down.

When things are really dismal, you can laugh, or you can cave in completely.