I loved Molly. Or at least I told myself I did. Or, if what I felt for her was not love, it was at least a plausible imitation, a convincing substitute.

[There was] only one news channel, overseen by a bland and complexly multicultural board of advisors. It broadcast in fifteen languages and was, as a rule, interesting in none of them.

There's no point living if you can't, at least occasionally, live.

For such people the consummate act of moral clarity was a lynching or a suicide bombing, a fatwa or a pogrom. And they were ascendant now, rising like dark stars over a terminal landscape .

I understand so very little. But I am not afraid to look: I am a good observer at last. My eyes are open, and I am not afraid.

You never stop being a parent, Adam, no matter how old or wise your child becomes you'll see.

An honest book is almost as good as a friend.