"It's a strange poverty of the English language, and indeed, of many other languages, that we use this same word, 'depression' to describe how a kid feels when it rains on his birthday, and to describe how somebody feels the minute before they commit suicide."

"Sweet allowed her pregnancy to get the better of her and simply sat down. Reenie’s lips set into a straight, emotionless line. Mawu no longer talked back, the words she did speak taking on an air of vapidity. Philip was chained at night, no longer trusted. So it was no wonder that Lizzie sought out the white woman then."

"This very act of consenting to its loss of control is itself the critical event of all crisis. To give up ones stature as the director of ones own existance: this is, for us, the ultimate death, the crisis that undermines our being in the most radical way."

"There are five stages to an actor's career: who is Herschel Bernardi? Get me Herschel Bernardi get me a Herschel Bernardi type get me a young Herschel Bernardi and who is Herschel Bernardi?"

"Maybe I'll go where I can see stars, he said to himself as the car gained velocity and altitude; it headed away from San Francisco, toward the uninhabited desolation to the north. To the place where no living thing would go. Not unless it felt that the end had come."

"While we watched without comprehension, she moved away to where none of us wanted to follow. Ruth May shrank back through the narrow passage between this brief fabric of light and all the rest of what there is for us: the long waiting. Now she will wait the rest of the time. It will be exactly as long as the time that passed before she was born."