“She's here now, perfume coiled like a thuggee scarf”

“Scent:
When she wore the hat, even many years later, she could always smell her mother's perfume & it was hard to remember she was supposed to be alone.”

“No matter what she did with her hair it took about three minutes for it to tangle itself up again, like a garden hosepipe in a shed [Which, no matter how carefully coiled, will always uncoil overnight and tie the lawnmower to the bicycles].”

“[Her] perfume was delicate and at the same time with the hint of an odor like a tiger in ambush.”

“Now remember courage, go to the door,
Open it and see whether coiled on the bed
Or cringing by the wall, a savage beast
Maybe with golden hair, with deep eyes
Like a bearded spider on a sunlit floor
Will snarl—and man can never be alone.”

“Art Nouveau was coil-envy.”

“She is our moon. Our tidal pull. She is the rich deep beneath the sea, the buried treasure, the expression in the owl's eye, the perfume in the wild rose. She is what the water says when it moves.”

“Now that she realized she had been waiting for him — she did not like that.”

“Now she is like everyone else.”

“There was only one thing the perfume could not do. It could not turn him into a person who could love and be loved like everyone else. So, to hell with it he thought. To hell with the world. With the perfume. With himself”