“Only then, invisible to everyone and with her curtains drawn, did she allow her tears to fall: in love, and for his hurts, and in terrible pride.”

“He treasured her, treasured her tears, treasured her love for others. Her heart might even be big enough to fill that empty space in his own chest. Perhaps she could be his heart as well.”

“She fell as falls the rose in spring,
The fairest are ever most perishing,
Yet lingers that tale of sorrow and love,
Of the Christian maid and her Moslem love;
A tale to be told in the twilight hour,
For the beauty's tears in her lonely bower.”

“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.”

“There is a shy client who uses invisible ink on Nagiko's body to hide his obvious talent. The woman attempts to develop the invisible ink by bathing in warm water, by standing as close as she dare to a hot fire, by washing her body in the juice of onion-skins until the onions make her weep and her tears prove to be the necessary solvent to reveal the writing.”

“Lover," she whispers, and closes her eyes.
It falls upon her.
Love is like dying.”

“but she realized that she wanted him to know her. She wanted him to understand her, if only because she had strange sense that he was the kind of man she could fall in love with, even if she didn't want to.”

“She did not send for him until she was afraid; she was not afraid until he undid her work; he did not undo her work until he was past loving her.”

“She grabbed his arm. "Let it be, son!" she cried. "That child ain't hurt!"
"Not hurt! You look into her eyes and tell me she ain't hurt!”

“Jennifer Merrick had stored all her tears inside her, and her pride and courage would never permit her to break down and shed them.”