“She could not understand why people feared new ideas. She was frightened by the old ones.”

“Does she know all the people she says she knows?”
“She knows everybody.”
“Maybe that’s why she’s getting old.”

“She could understand suddenly why people talked about passion as fire: She felt as if they had caught aflame and were burning like the dry Malibu hills, about to become ashes that would mix together forever.”

“Torn between fear and something that resembled love, she wrestled with questions she never dreamed she would face: How could she leave? Then again, how could she stay?”

“He is tremendously strong, she thought, and liked the idea, even as she had feared that strength when she first met him”

“She now knew that the death she feared might not be a physical one, that it could be death of the will, the soul, the mind, the laws, and thus not death, but a perpetual dying.”

“She had almost dared ask, but was perhaps too fearful of hearing something she could not refute.”

“Coming near him like a ballet dancer she took a leap towards him, and he, frightened by her vehemence, and fearing that she would crash against him, instinctively became absolutely rigid, and she felt herself embracing a statue.”

“And the more she could imagine this island, the less she liked the real world. The more she could imagine the people, the less she liked any real people.”

“Maybe it’s not as bad as she fears. Old people always think the world is going to ruin. It’s their job. Maybe they’re right, Floyd replied.”