“Sometimes it slanted against her window with a pinging sound, which meant it was close to hail, and then it was visible as tiny pellets for a moment on the pane before the pellets vanished and rolled quietly down the glass, each drop leaving its own delicate trickle. At other times it fell straight down, hardly touching the window at all, but still there beyond the glass, like a delicate, beaded curtain at the entrance to another room.”

“And then there came into my heart a very great love for my father and I thought it was very much braver to spend a life doing what you really do not want rather than selfishly following forever your own dreams and inclinations.”

“All of us are better when we're loved.”

“No one has ever said that life is to be easy. Only that it is to be lived.”

“In our absence, the violet early evening light pours in the bay window, filling the still room like water poured into a glass. The glass is delicate. The thin, tight surface of the liquid light trembles. But it does not break. Time does not pass. Not yet.”

“There was nothing separate about her days. Like drops on the window-pane, they ran together and trickled away.”

“A thin yellow curtain hung in front of the corner window as boney tree limbs tapped on the glass like an unwelcome visitor. Despite the tiny buds on the trees outside, the branch at this particular window was still bare.”