“She already felt dead in everything but name. What remained to be taken from her? She longed to be enfolded, welcomed, into the earth - to breathe no more, love no more, hurt no more”

“Her name's Prim. She's just twelve. And I love her more than anything.”

“Maybe this is why Misty loved him. Loved you. Because you believed in her so much more than she did. You expected more from her than she did from herself.”

“And I wasn't old enough to be wise, so I loved her more, not less, because I knew she would be taken from me soon.”

“And yet, even as she spoke, she knew that she did not wish to come back. not to stay, not to live. She loved the little yellow cottage more than she loved any place on earth. but she was through with it except in her memories.”

“She had grown older. And he loved her more now than he had loved her when he understood her better, when she was the product of her parents. What she was now was what she herself had decided to become.”

“Well, she's not responding to my advances," he observed more brightly than he felt, "so she must be dead."
"Or she's a woman of good taste and sense.”

“I think her flaws make me love her even more. She's not perfect, but she's perfect to me”

“She is, above all else, tired; she wants more than anything to return to her bed and her book. The world, this world, feels suddenly stunned and stunted, far from everything.”

“There is nothing more painful in the world than Aly when she makes her big eyes. She makes her big hurt eyes, there's nothing you can do. She just kills you.”