“Many days later another caravan was passing and a man saw something on top of the highest dune there. And when they went up to see, they found Outka, Mimouna and Aicha; they were still there, lying the same way as when they had gone to sleep. And all three of the glasses… were full of sand. That was how they had their tea in the Sahara.”

“Every man had to die. He’d always found it odd that so many died when they were old, as logic said that was the point in their lives when they’d had the most practice not dying.”

“In 1913, when Anthony Patch was twenty-five, two years were already gone since irony, the Holy Ghost of this later day, had, theoretically at least, descended upon him.”

“I zipped myself all the way into the sleeping bag of myself, not because I was hurt, and not because I had broken something, but because they were cracking up.”

“The kids were just 8 and 10 years old and seemed to be doing much better than I expected. That first night they both went upstairs to bed, and later I went up to check on them. They were asleep. When I saw Melanie I started crying. She had a picture of her dad with her. She was holding it in her arms.”

“It was a nasty look. It made me feel as if I were something the dog had brought in and intended to bury later on, when he had time.”

“Lying in the bed that had once held two, Lisey thought alone never felt more lonely than when you woke up and discovered you still had the house to yourself. That you and the mice in the walls were the only ones still breathing.”

“In the days when we went gypsying
A long time ago;
The lads and lassies in their best
Were drest from top to toe.”

“He said that in his whole life he most repented of three things: one was that he had trusted a secret to a woman; another, that he went by water when he might have gone by land; the third, that he had remained one whole day without doing any business of moment.”

“When we had been in Ashenstovo [1873, located near the Prussian border]] a few days my mother took us children to see a famous Polish church, Kostjol, famous for its miraculous Madonna icon. This icon had three precious coats, one of gold, one of coral and one with pearls and diamonds... Many peasant men and women were were lying prostrate on the floor as if crucified, with their arms outstretched. It was very quiet. Suddenly a great blare of trumpets shattered the silence. Terribly frightened I saw the gold curtain open and the Madonna appear wearing a gold robe.”