# Quote — Jane Smiley, The Age of Grief

> Teeth outlast everything. Death is nothing to a tooth. Hundreds of years in acidic soil just keeps a tooth clean. A fire that burns away hair and flesh and even bone leaves teeth dazzling like daisies in the ashes. Life is what destroys teeth. Undiluted apple juice in a baby bottle, sourballs, the pH balance of drinking water, tetracycline, sand in your bread if you were in the Roman army, biting seal-gut thread if you are an Eskimo woman, playing the trumpet, pulling your own teeth with a pliers. In their hearts, most dentists are certain that their patients can’t be trusted with their teeth, but you can’t grieve for every tooth, every mouth. You can’t even grieve for the worst of them; you can only send the patient home with as many of the teeth he came in with as possible.

- Author: [Jane Smiley](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-smiley.md)
- Book: [The Age of Grief](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-smiley/the-age-of-grief.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jane_Smiley#The_Age_of_Grief_(1987)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-smiley/the-age-of-grief/teeth-outlast-everything

## More from this book

> She often wondered whether cleanliness drove love away. Fastidious, she suspected that life itself was to be found in dirt and disorder, in unknown dark substances that she was hesitant to touch.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-smiley/the-age-of-grief/she-often-wondered.md)

> Dana seemed to me to be sort of like a hot-air balloon. The more weight we could hang on her, in terms of children, houses, belongings, foodstuffs, office equipment, and debts, the harder it would be for her to gain altitude.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-smiley/the-age-of-grief/dana-seemed-to.md)

> I will never see her, hard as I try to look past love. My eyes will always cast a light over her, and I will always think that this love, mine for her, is a dear thing. But it is as common as sand, as common as flesh.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jane-smiley/the-age-of-grief/i-will-never.md)