Quotes By Author: Sena Jeter Naslund

“Phoebe asked me, “Tell me, what do you think of the afterlife?”I was a bit nonplussed. I had no idea what she thought, but I knew that the question must be of greater interest to someone of her age than to me. But our conversation had been completely honest, and before I could speak, honesty and tact had joined hands in my answer. “I have no faith at all,” I said, “but sometimes I have hope.”I rather think,” she replied, “that total annihilation is the most comfortable position.”I was shaken. The horse clopped on. The children laughed behind us.When I die,” she said, “I don’t expect to see any of my loved ones again. I’ll just become a part of all this.” She waved her hand at the surrounding countryside. “That’s all right with me.”

“If you remembered somebody was as real as yourself, how could you kill anybody?”

“Is beauty enhanced or adulterated by utility?”

“What is humor?’ one of their professors had posed, and he had answered, ”nondangerous, unexpectedly inappropriate juxtaposition.”

“Where we choose to be, where we choose to be–we have the power to determine that in our lives. We cannot reel time backward or forward, but we can take ourselves to the place that defines our being.”