"For you, a thousand times over."

"Children aren't coloring books. You don't get to fill them with your favorite colors."

"...attention shifted to him like sunflowers turning to the sun."

"But even when he wasn't around, he was."

"When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal a wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. There is no act more wretched than stealing."

"...she had a voice that made me think of warm milk and honey."

"My heart stuttered at the thought of her."

"...and I would walk by, pretending not to know her, but dying to."

"It turned out that, like satan, cancer had many names."

"Every woman needed a husband, even if he did silence the song in her."

"The first time I saw the Pacific, I almost cried."

"Proud. His eyes gleamed when he said that and I liked being on the receiving end of that look."

"Make morning into a key and throw it into the well,
Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly.
Let the morning sun forget to rise in the East,
Go slowly, lovely moon, go slowly."

"Men are easy,... a man's plumbing is like his mind: simple, very few surprises. You ladies, on the other hand... well, God put a lot of thought into making you."

"All my life, I'd been around men. That night, I discovered the tenderness of a woman."

"And I could almost feel the emptiness in [her] womb, like it was a living, breathing thing. It had seeped into our marriage, that emptiness, into our laughs, and our lovemaking. And late at night, in the darkness of our room, I'd feel it rising from [her] and settling between us. Sleeping between us. Like a newborn child."

"America was a river, roaring along unmindful of the past. I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me someplace far. Someplace with no ghosts, no memories, and no sins. If for nothing else, for that I embraced America."

"...and every day I thank [God] that I am alive, not because I fear death, but because my wife has a husband and my son is not an orphan."

"...lifting him from the certainty of turmoil and dropping him in a turmoil of uncertainty."

"...sometimes the dead are luckier."

"He walked like he was afraid to leave behind footprints. He moved as if not to stir the air around him."

"...and when she locked her arms around my neck, when I smelled apples in her hair, I realized how much I had missed her. 'You're still the morning sun to me...' I whispered."

"...there is a God, there always has been. I see him here, in the eys of the people in this [hospital] corridor of desperation. This is the real house of God, this is where those who have lost God will find Him... there is a God, there has to be, and now I will pray, I will pray that He will forgive that I have neglected Him all of these years, forgive that I have betrayed, lied, and sinned with impunity only to turn to Him now in my hour of need. I pray that He is as merciful, benevolent, and gracious as His book says He is."