Sooner or later, even the sharpest pain became flattened.

Odd how clear it suddenly became, once a person had died, that the body was the very least of him.

Like anyone in love, she constantly found reasons to mention his name.

Simply watching her-simply sitting at the kitchen table watching her knead a loaf of bread-filled him with contentment.

Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.

There was no such thing on this earth as real change. You could change husbands, but not the situation. You could change who, but not what. We're all just spinning here, she thought, and she pictured the world as a little blue teacup, revolving like those rides at Kiddie Land where everyone is pinned to his place by centrifugal force.

One sad thing about this world is that the acts that take the most out of you are usually the ones that other people will never know about.

...the people she admired ... had this in common: they gazed at the world from a distance.

But I don't think people take bad advice. They've got intuition too, you know. In fact I'd be surprised if they take any advice at all.

...if you catalogue grudges, anything looks bad.