“The smell of burning firewood and the molding of organic, earthy substances reminded her of jumping wildly into the enormous leaf piles of autumns past and she suddenly wished that it was appropriate for someone her age to do such a thing.”

“They were moments when she was suddenly reminded of her child, and perhaps also of the man she had loved; the breaking of links with the past is a painful thing.”

“Maria?... She's been writing all this down? Oh, bless her...' He leafed on through the pile. 'Although that's not how that happened... and no, she's wrong, bowties are cool.”

“Mesmerized, all she can do is watch this piece of her life move off; all she can do is watch it and suffer. She is experiencing a brand-new feeling called nostalgia. That feeling, that irrepressible yearning to return, suddenly reveals to her the existence of the past, the power of the past, of her past; in the house of her life […] from now on her existence will be inconceivable without these feelings.”

“From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom…It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears. The rose of the world was breathing out smell. It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep.”

“What about mold," Tom reminded her. "Fuzziness on a girl is never attractive.”