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21 " There are more kinds of belonging than you know, Ronit, my joy. The world is not so easily categorized as you might prefer. And you are trying to steal that which you do not even desire. "
― Naomi Alderman , Disobedience
22 " I’d forgotten it was these people I was coming back to: these views, that synagogue full of small, cramped minds, grown twisted through lack of sunlight. "
23 " And from this we learn that we are not to look to Heaven to solve the difficulties of our lives, that we are not to interpret signs and wonders to live our lives by them. We learn that there is value in making our own choices, even if God Himself communicates clearly that the choices we make are wrong. We learn that we may argue with God, that we may disobey His direct commandments and yet delight Him with our actions. We learn of God’s compassion for us - in the end, broader than we can understand. "
24 " Still, it was hard to believe in a faint shadow on the lung. Who could see a shadow? What was a shadow? The congregation could not believe that Rav Krushka could succumb to a shadow. "
25 " I came to a long, wide table. Table, it said. I am a table. All that I have ever been or ever will be is a table. And on the table was a book. And the book was him. I knew him y his words. Truthfully, I would have known him if he’d been a lamp, or a pot plant, or a scale model of the Long Island Expressway. But, appropriately enough, he was a book. The words on the cover were simple, good words. I don’t remember what they were. "
26 " I’ve been thinking about two states of being—being gay, being Jewish. They have a lot in common. You don’t choose it, that’s the first thing. If you are, you are. There’s nothing you can do to change it. Some people might deny this, but even if you’re only “a little bit gay” or “a little bit Jewish,” that’s enough for you to identify yourself if you want. "
27 " I think that’s what most of us want, really, isn’t it? A challenge that’s just hard enough that we can accomplish it, but it’ll take everything we’ve got. So that there’s no room left in us for the doubt, the worry, the internal crises. We have to let it fill us up because that’s the only way to get the job done. "
28 " The moon was absent, a circle of darkness denoting the possibility of presence, the inevitability of return. "
29 " She wondered if she should have explained herself more clearly. She could not explain herself at all. There were no words, no permitted words, to explain anything that she wanted to say. All the words that could have communicated it had been banned, not only from her mouth but even from her mind. She was reduced to mere actions, which are both more and less than words. "
30 " Yes. I’m married. But that is a thing between me and Dovid, do you see? And whatever harm you might do to it has been done already. There is nothing more. And whatever pain I may give him, I have caused already. I know that. And whatever God may think of me, He thinks already. "
31 " It was as though they had never known love: both terrible and wonderful. She had considered them before, the people who did not know Friday. She wondered now if this was how Ronit felt in New York, without lines and demarcations, without order and sense, without anchor. A thing both to be feared and desired. "
32 " Look, do you know what I need right now?”“What?”I put my hand at that place at the back of his neck where his hair is short, soft bristles and pulled him toward me. And because it was easy, I guess, or familiar or just because it put an end to the awkwardness, he kissed me back. He smelled exactly like I remembered, maybe even better. And we fell to doing other easy, familiar, forbidden things. "
33 " It wasn’t really as though I wanted either of them. I just expected them to be there when I needed them. I just expected that they’d stay where I put them, wouldn’t cause trouble. They were both so obedient. "
34 " In the beginning, therefore, the most important work is of separation. It is of pulling apart the tangled threads. It is of saying “This shall be separate from that. This shall be water, this shall be sky, and this shall be the line between them, the horizon.” It is of setting a line between them. "
35 " every measure of talent brings with it nine measures of work. "
36 " We should remember this. Often it may seem that time has taken us very far from our origin. But if we take only a few more steps, we will round the corner and see a familiar place. And sometimes it may seem that in all our traveling we have returned to the place where we began. But although the view may be similar, it will never be identical; we should remember that there is no return. "
37 " What, then, does marriage teach us? It teaches us to strive for closeness. That intimacy cannot be attained or retained without effort. "
38 " You need a window into another world to work out what you think of your own. "
39 " That those who live narrow lives have only themselves to blame when they find themselves shocked. "
40 " Ease, luxury, and plenty are not shameful, but they are not happiness. "