She [my mother] was the force around which our world turned. My mother was propelled through the universe by the brute force of reason. She was the judge in all our arguments. One disapproving word from her was enough to send us off to hide in a corner, where we would cry and fantasize our own martyrdom. And yet. One kiss could restore us to princedom. Without her, our lives would dissolve into chaos.

In nature forms are endlessly being destroyed and then recreated and destroyed and recreated. Nature isn't afraid to destroy forms in the process of regenerating. So why are we afraid of that in life?

I like to think the world wasn't ready for me, but maybe the truth is that I wasn't ready for the world. I've always arrived too late for my life.

After she left everything fell apart. No Jew was safe. There were rumors of unfathomable things, and because we couldn't fathom them we failed to believe them, until we had no choice and it was too late. p 8

In one's youth, one has tremendous access to one's feelings. And as one gets older, some of those feelings kind of drift away. But so much more happens to you. There's more at stake in life.

When you're younger, it's all theoretical. It's all potential. As you get older, it becomes actual, and your life gets filled with unexpected complexity; some of it asked for, and some of it not. It becomes richer, I find.

He wondered if what he had taken for the richness of silence was really the poverty of never being heard [...]. How could he have forgotten what he had always known: there is no match for the silence of God.