“… there was cement in her soul. It had been there for a while, an early morning disease of fatigue, shapeless desires, brief imaginary glints of other lives she could be living, that over the months melded into a piercing homesickness.”

“Why did she have to wake up this morning? Or ever! But especially this morning. Her stare took on a glint of panic. Then she thought: Oh! This is my wedding day!”

“She could not ignore life. She had to live it and it was too brutal, too hostile, for her even to try to gloss over its harshness with a smile.”

“Since Baby’s birth, she had learned that the first few months of motherhood were about fatigue and leakiness.”

“Medical school had been a time for imaginary diseases and Martin had contracted almost all of them.”

“She cannot chain my soul. Yes, she could hurt me. She'd already done so… I would bleed, or not. Scar, or not. Live, or not. But she could not hurt my soul, not unless I gave it to her.”

“She was making money. But she could not get over the idea that to earn her living was somewhat undignified, and she was inclined to remind you that she was a lady by birth.”

“Actually, I'd already briefed him, early this morning. Since we were up at six. Since, at six, the nurse had been overcome with the overwhelming compulsion to take Fang's temperature.”

“She seems to have had the ability to stand firmly on the rock of her past while living completely and unregretfully in the present.”

“She did not believe that things could remain the same in different places, and since the portion of her life that lay behind her had been bad, no doubt that which remained to be lived would be better.”