“There's not a thing in the world that will not change, including you.”

“It's a strange product of infatuation, she thinks. To want to tell someone about mundane things. The awareness of another person suddenly sharpens your senses, so that the little things come into focus and the world seems more beautiful and complicated.”

“The woman seems ready to be pleased with the world.”

“Monotonous and thankless as her job can be sometimes, she cheers at the thought of her coworkers - a dozen of them crammed into their little offices in the basement - all cleverly disguised as harmless geeks, all capable of saving the world if called upon.”

“Isabel turns down Oak toward the little vintage shop at Fourth Avenue, thinking of lunch—the Chinese place in Old Town, casting around inside herself for hunger, imagining the tastes of things.”

“You've been here before, Bell. Remember the stories you told me about wandering in the woods when you were a little girl? It scared the crap out of you, but you went out there all alone, knee-high to a bunny rabbit, and picked berries and climbed trees and found bird nests and came home all bug-bitten and mossy. And you loved every minute of it. It made you our beautiful Arctic Bell, impervious to cold and feared by mosquitoes. Aren't you glad you didn't stay by grandma's side, darning socks and baking gingerbread?Who darns socks?Girls nobody tells stories about.”

“Dear L--Fell asleep in a park. Started to rain. Woke up with my hat full of leaves. You are all I see when I open or close a book.Yours,M”