“Her life, except for reading, had been dull—but it had not been in vain.”

“the joy of someone who had been a reader all her life, whose world had been immeasurably enlarged by the words of others.”

“She would've been a good woman," said The Misfit, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”

“There was a dull pang of regret because it was not the kiss of love which had inflamed her, because it was not love which had held this cup of life to her lips.”

“Wildness had never been a part of her life. Home, work, home, work. That's all her life had consisted of, really. She'd told Maddox that she'd been glad for her solitude, bu the truth was, there were times she'd been starved for touch. Any touch.”

“… she felt about reading what some writers felt about writing: that it was impossible not to do it and that at this late stage of her life she had been chosen to read as others were chosen to write.”

“Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature”

“The book she had been reading was under her pillow, pressing its cover against her ear as if to lure her back into its printed pages.”

“All the reading she had done had given her a view of life that they had never seen.”

“She loved him because he had brought her back to life. She had been like a caterpillar in a cocoon, and he had drawn her out and shown her that she was a butterfly.”