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At that moment [he] had a sudden clear understanding of what had already happened that morning: his life had been divided into a before and an after, and he would always be comparing the two. (chapter 2 p21)

Dreaming of his future, he no longer heard all the things she did not say. (p164)

It came, over and over, down to this: What made someone a mother? Was it biology alone, or was it love? (Chapter 16, p258)

“Sometimes, just when you think everything’s gone, you find a way...Like after a prairie fire...It seems like the end of the world. The earth is all scorched and black and everything green is gone. But after the burning, the soil is richer, and new things can grow....People are like that, too, you know. They start over. They find a way.” (Chapter 18, p295)

My friend Carol says aging evens out

the advantage of beautiful women

over plain ones. ...

Where are the girls who were beautiful?

ANGER IS FEAR’S BODYGUARD, a poster in the hospital had read (Chapter 9, p110)

When she asked Mia how she knew which images to put together, Mia shook her head. "I don't," she said. "This-this is how I figure out what I think...I don't have a plan, I'm afraid," she said..."But then, no one really does, no matter what they say." (Chapter 8, p91)

...all of them had tried to forget it. They did not talk about it; they never mentioned it. But it lingered, like a bad smell. It had suffused them so deeply it could never wash out. (chapter six, p124)

Before that she hadn’t realized how fragile happiness was, how if you were careless, you could knock it over and shatter it. (p273)

It would disappear forever from her memory of Lydia, the way memories of a lost loved one always smooth and simplify themselves, shedding complexities like scales. (p271)

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.

Ocean people are different from land people. The ocean never stops saying and asking into ears, which don't sleep like eyes. Those who live by the sea examine the driftwood and glass balls that float from foreign ships. They let scores of invisible imps loose out of found bottles. In a scoop of salt water, they revive the dead blobs that have been beached in storms and tides: fins, whiskers, and gills unfold; mouths, eyes, and colors bloom and spread. Sometimes ocean people are given to understand the newness and oldness of the world; then all morning they try to keep that boundless joy like a little sun inside their chests. The ocean also makes its people know immensity. (p90)