“… there remained a strange formality between them, and her pleasure in his presence felt too much like missing him had felt during the last week.”

“She felt everything too deeply, it was like the world was too much for her.”

“She glared at him, feeling the old frustration. Sometimes in his presence she felt the deepest connection to him, and other times she felt completely alone-as though any bond to him was her own bitter imagination.”

“It felt very good to have him walking beside her. Good like rest and quiet, like something you could live without but you needed anyway. That you had to learn how to miss, and then you'd never stop missing it.”

“He was the one she was doing all this for, but sometimes she missed him so much it felt like she swallowed broken glass.”

“As soon as she'd met him at the arrivals gate on his return from Thailand, lithe and brown and shaven-headed, she knew that there was no chance of a relationship between them. Too much had happened to him, too little had happened to her.”

“Percy’d heard stories about amputees who had phantom pains where their missing legs
and arms used to be. That’s how his mind
felt—like his missing memories were aching.”

“As he bent closer, he realized they were words -- words his wife had carved into the cave ice with the last of her dying strength. As he read them, he felt them like three hard blows in the stomach.
KILL THE CHILD”

“Times like this, with the wind moving the grass and curling around her like a huge cool hand, Tess felt the world as a second presence, as another person, as if the wind and the grass had voices of their own and she could hear them talking.”

“The phenomenal Celia Cruz [is missing]. But although she couln't be here physically [Cruz died in 2003], I felt her presence throughout the entire recording of the album. It's still impossible for me to feel like Celia's gone, simply because she is still so alive to me through her music and the friendship we shared for so many years. There were moments during this recording that felt to me like she was directing me to a degree or giving me ideas for where to go with the song.”