She was a Jew feeder without a question in the world on that man's first night in Molching. She was an arm reacher, deep into a mattress, to deliver a sketchbook to a teenage girl. (84.25)

It's not the place, I think. It's the people. We'd have all been the same anywhere else.

Papa was a man with silver eyes, not dead ones. Papa was an accordion! But his bellows were all empty. Nothing went in and nothing came out.

Trust was accumulated quickly, due primarily to the brute strength of the man's gentleness, his thereness. (p.36)

He was waving. "Saukerl," she laughed, and as she held up her hand, she knew completely that he was simultaneously calling her a Saumensch. I think that's as close to love as eleven-year-olds can get.

I see Death as the part of us that knows all the time that we're going to die, reminding us to live properly.

If her soul ever leaks, I want it to land on me.