A Pigeon and a Boy

That’s true freedom for a person. Not money, but time.

A woman has to look good, but a man—a little bit nicer looking than a monkey is enough.

What does a person need?' she proclaimed one day after the first spoonful of dessert. 'Not much: something sweet to eat, and a story to tell, and time and space, and gladioluses in a vase, and two friends, and two hilltops, one on which to stand and the other upon which to gaze. And two eyes for watching the heavens and waiting....

Mine is the tongue tied silence of awkwardness, hers the smiling silence of anticipation, and then we utter inanities to each other, like "beautiful weather arranged for us" and "I like these kind of clouds.

Tizrah split each fig and gave one half to me while she bit into the other half. She explained that every fig tastes different from the next, even if they grew on the same tree. "Meshulam told me it isn't nice if someone gets a good fig and someone else gets a rotten one, so you have to split every fig between the people eating them.

In such situations it is a good idea to divide hope into small bits of reality, not to expect a huge miracle at the end of the road but to wish for the grace of the few feet just ahead.

My mother left home in the manner that characterized everything she did: with a decision that swelled and ripened slowly and once made could be rescinded by no one. She would sit at the kitchen table with a large sheet of paper that she would divide into two columns. At the top of one she would write FOR and at the top of the other AGAINST...She made her lists, counted on her fingers, and made her decision only after tabulating and weighing.