“The weapon of memory, turned on the self, is an apocalyptic sword.”

“Life… has a way of testing the fault line”

“Lucky people should hide. Pray the days of wrath do not visit their home.”

“Men and women find all sorts of ways to be together, all sorts of ways. Yours was high and dangerous. Most of us stay on the lower paths.”

“My mother insured that a life of petty facts and dutiful farming was kept at bay by her passionate intensity, which nurtured the essential dreaminess of his nature”

“The weapon of memory, turned on the self, is an apocalyptic sword.”

“Where would we be without it, memory? Well, it'll never die here. Never in this country. We feed it too well.”

“I want to know what's wrong with loving someone for life? Even when they're dead? What exactly is wrong with that? Why should I put him away, out of my mind? Like he's out of fashion. Does no one love for ever any more? Is no one built for the long road?”

“And if I was bewildered through those decades, totally bewildered, so was the country I came from. The majority, what was the phrase? 'Condemn utterly what is happening, this barbarity.' But that's all we did. Condemn. And march. But not often enough.”