“Pain was no longer a mystery to him, and a man familiar with pain has entered a new kind of freedom.”

“It was the kind of conversation you could only hold in whispers.”

“Light is good company, when alone; I took my comfort where I found it, and the warmest yellow bulb in the living-room lamp had become a kind of radiant babysitter all its own.”

“Being there was like having a good cry, the clearing of the air after weight has been held.”

“I loved my brother, but relying on him was like closing a hand around air.”

“Mom loved my brother more. Not that she didn't love me - I felt the wash of her love every day, pouring over me, but it was a different kind, siphoned from a different, and tamer, body of water. I was her darling daughter; Joseph was her it.”

“The address label wouldn't come off so I put the ripped electric bill back in its stack by the phone. On top of all the other bills, all the papers that ran the house invisibly”