“She loved to walk down the street with a book under her arm. It differentiated her from the others”

“Outside the building, she started to walk west to Lexington to catch the bus. Between Third and Lexington, she reached into her coat pocket for her purse and found the sandwich half. She took it out and started to bring her arm down, to drop the sandwich into the street, but instead she put it back into her pocket. A few years before, it had taken her three days to dispose of the Easter chick she had found dead on the sawdust in the bottom of her wastebasket.”

“When she listened to songs that she loved on the radio, something stirred inside her. A liquid ache spread under her skin, and she walked out of the world like a witch.”

“In the pool halls, the hustlers and the losers
I used to watch 'em through the glass.
Well I'd stand outside at closing time
Just to watch her walk on past.
Unlike all the other ladies, she looked so young and sweet.
As she made her way alone down that empty street.
Down on Mainstreet.”

“The instant he knew he loved her, she slipped down his body and out of his arms.”

“One summer morning at sunrise a long time ago
I met a little girl with a book under her arm.
I asked her why she was out so early and
she answered that there were too many books and
far too little time. And there she was absolutely right.”

“To whole room her eyes are numb,
As she reads from a true love story.
From the pages of a book her lover comes,
Her heart bleeds, it's a true love story.”

“she committed suicide by putting her extremities down the garbage disposal-first one arm and then, kind of miraculously if you think about it, the other arm.”

“His love for her was a gift he gave her daily, expecting nothing in return. He walked at her side, his love for her a torch to guide her footsteps along the dark path she walked.”

“Tying her bonnet under her chin,
She tied her raven ringlets in;
But not alone in the silken snare
Did she catch her lovely floating hair,
For, tying her bonnet under her chin,
She tied a young man’s heart within.”