"In the last photograph of her, the bullet wound looked like a cheerful summer rose arranged just above her left ear. A few petals had fallen on her kaffan, the white shroud she was wrapped in before she was laid to rest."

"State-sanctioned marriage is a civil contract, period. A contract is not a judgment of moral value. It is a legal agreement between two parties that testifies to a meeting of minds between those consenting entities. It is not a religious act or rite and so has nothing to do with Adam and Eve or Steve or even Harvey."

"If Broadway was a river running from the top of Manhattan down to the Battery, undulating with traffic and commerce and lights, then the east-west streets were eddies where, leaf-like, one could turn slow circles from the beginning to the ever shall be, world without end."

"I shuffle along, letting the current pull me, and I have the sense that I am like a rat caught in a maze of tunnels, moving endlessly toward some promise of...Of what? Light? Life? Cheese?"

"I'm Chinese-American, of course, and so it's very interesting to see China actually launch their own astronauts, becoming the third nation, following the United States and Russia, to do so."

"If tomorrow is promised to no one, why do we spend today building the foundation for tomorrow. The future may not be promised, but it may be filled with promise."