“Now that she had nothing to lose, she was free.”

“He expects nothing, she thought, because he's never had anything. And nothing was expected of him. He was free in a way she never would be.”

“In losing a friend, she is reminded of all she has lost and all she stands to lose again. There is nothing to be done to make it any easier.
We all grieve alone.”

“Mrs. Jennings was a widow, with an ample jointure. She had only two daughters, both of whom she had lived to see respectably married, and she had now therefore nothing to do but to marry all the rest of the world.”

“She knew nothing but she had everything he had lost.”

“She liked the life she had. She loved habits. She craved a day with nothing in it, a long, quiet stretch of hours in the studio.”

“Every now and then she looked around for tangible evidence of his having ever been there. Where were the butterflies? the blueberries? the whistling reed? She could find nothing, for he had left nothing but his stunning absence.”

“She tried out the chamber pot, although she really had nothing to contribute.”

“she tapped her finger and nothing happened and she thought she had lost her magic, but it had only changed and it took her awhile to figure it out.”

“What for? What does a sixty-odd-year-old slavewoman who walks like a three-legged dog need freedom for? And when she stepped foot on free ground she could not believe that Halle knew what she didn’t; that Halle, who had never drawn one free breath, knew that there was nothing like it in this world. It scared her.”