“All we had was her room, her stories, and the quiet that settled in as we tried in vain to spread ourselves out and fill the space she'd left behind.”

“Quiet Spaces
We had gone far enough together to listen easily in the quiet spaces.”

“Wildness had never been a part of her life. Home, work, home, work. That's all her life had consisted of, really. She'd told Maddox that she'd been glad for her solitude, bu the truth was, there were times she'd been starved for touch. Any touch.”

“To have her meals, and her daily walk, and her fill of novels, and to be left alone, was all that she asked of the gods.”

“Hunkered down out on the spacious ice / coat-hems touching the snow / she slaps her knees, tries to sweet-talk her dog / but it won't come, does not remember its name, / left it there, / she does not remember her own, either, / and here on the shore I keep shouting, in vain.”

“Her own misery filled her heart—there was no room in it for other people's sorrow.”

“As long as a thing is unknown, it belongs to us in a way that well-known things do not. For we have the opportunity to fill the empty, unknown spaces for ourselves, and in them there is room for imagination and for hope.”

“But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begins.”

“It was as if hope had appeared out of nowhere to settle beside her and it wasn't going anywhere, it wasn't going to desert her now.”

“I looked at her and tried to speak, but all I could think about was how shocked she'd be if I said what I was thinking.”