"One never meets just Cancer, or War, or Unhappiness (or Happiness). One only meets each hour or moment that comes. All manner of ups and downs. Many bad spots in our best times, many good ones in our worst. One never gets the total impact of what we call 'the thing itself'. But we call it wrongly. The thing itself is simply all these ups and downs: the rest is a name or an idea." Chap. 1, p. 12

"Time and space and body were the very things that brought us together; the telephone wires by which we communicated. Cut one off, or cut both off simultaneously. Either way, mustn't the conversation stop?" Chap. 1, p. 13

"Unless, of course, you can literally believe all that stuff about family reunions 'on the further shore,' pictured entirely in earthly terms. But that is all unscriptural, all out of bad hymns and lithographs...