“Her mind lives tidily, apart from cold and noise and pain. And bolts the door against her heart, out wailing in the rain.”

“But, in her life, nothing was going to happen. Such was the will of God! The future was a dark corridor, and at the far end the door was bolted.”

“She enjoys rain for its wetness, winter for its cold, summer for its heat. She loves rainbows as much for fading as for their brilliance. It is easy for her, she opens her heart and accepts everything.”

“I saw the fare welling hands,
They were sickly,
When my hand
Touched her cold and long fingers
Which was from the family of the wailing reed
It gripped an eternal grief in its fist
The pen broke
And pain
Like black drops of ink
dropped on our papery hearts.
I saw the fare welling hands,
They were sickly;”

“Nursed amid her [London's] noise, her crowds, her beloved smoke, what have I been doing all my life, if I have not lent out my heart with usury to such scenes?”

“There was the noise of a bolt shot back, and the door opened a few inches, enough to show a long snout and a pair of sleepy blinking eyes.”

“I’m going out of my mind, oh, oh; with a pain that stops and starts; like a corkscrew to my heart; Ever since we’ve been apart”

“Cause what she's doin' now is tearin' me apart,
Fillin' up my mind and emptyin' my heart.
I can hear her call each time the cold wind blows,
And I wonder if she knows…what she's doin' now.”

“The sorrow that lay cold in her mother's heart… converted it into a tomb.”

“I stepped inside. It was almost pitch dark, smelling of old underwear and the sleep of a sick body. A feeble light came from a crack in the window covered by a slice of sacking. Before I could stop him, Sammy had bolted the door…Vapors spilled from our mouths in the cold air. "Let her in, Sammy," I said. "What the hell."”