“She waited for the train to pass. Then she said, "I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.”

“She thought of Aziza's stutter, and of what Aziza had said earlier about fractures and powerful collisions deep down and how sometimes all we see on the surface is a slight tremor.”

“You really love her don't you," she said.
With all my heart."
She looked as sad as I'd ever seen her.
What's your heart telling you to do?"
I don't know."
Maybe", she said gently,"You're trying to hard to hear it.”

“All I ask is that you do as well as you can, and remember that, while to write adverbs is human, to write he said or she said is divine.”

“Sometimes I think I don't know what I'm doing
but I always end up doing what I know.
And what I know may not, I know, be a great deal
but what I know nobody can take,
nobody can take, nobody can take away from me,
no, no, no. Away from me, no, no, no.
I do what I know. Doing what I know.
Sometimes I think I don't know what I'm doing
but I always end up doing what I know.
Away we go, doing what I know.”

“Single Mind:
If I love you with all my heart, she said, what will you give me? & then she stopped & said I didn't have to answer that because she was going to do it anyway.”

“He said a bad word. Do you want to know what it was? It started with F. It's not the one you're thinking of, though. To the other one. The one that ends with P. do you want to know what it was? It was troop." She frowned. "Wait that's not a word.”

“She snuggled back under the blanket with me, turned toward me so that she could rest her head on my chest. “I hear your heart,” she said.
“Do you check every once in a while, just to make sure I’m not undead?”

“I know what Claire is. You know I know it. I told you the first minute I met you. But did you ever stop to think it’s all worth it to me? Every time she makes a pass at another man, I know she’s comparing. She’s out on the open market, shopping. And being shopped for. I don’t have any collar around her neck She’s not tame. I’m not a habit to her. I’m not something she’s tied to by any law. And every time she winds up coming back to me, you know what that proves. It proves I’m still the toughest man in the pack. Because she wouldn’t stay if I wasn’t.”

“If you believe in making change from the bottom up, if you believe the measure of change is how many people’s lives are better, you know it’s hard and some people think it’s boring. Speeches like this are fun. Actually doing the work is hard. So people say, well, we need to change. She’s been around a long time, she sure has, and she’s sure been worth every single year she’s put into making people’s lives better.”