“She felt sorry for him. A hippie chick who looked like she bought her clothes at Oxfam and a puff of wind could blow her over?”

“She was the only doctor's wife in Branford, Maine, who hung her wash on an outdoor clothesline instead of putting it through a dryer, because she liked to look out the window and see the clothes blowing in the wind. She had been especially delighted, one day, when one sleeve of the top of her husband's pajamas, prodded by the stiff breeze off the bay, reached over and grabbed her nightgown around the waist.”

“...looking at him makes her feel like laughing all over - as if she could laugh not just with her mouth but with her eyes, her heart, her very limbs.”

“She stood in the storm, & when the wind did not blow her away, she adjusted her sails.”

“She stood in the storm, and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails.”

“Still staring at the woman in the mirror, I hung up the phone. She looked as if she was going to cry. I felt bad for her, that woman with the dark hair, the one who only ever wore black and white. The one who might have been pretty if she'd only take care of herself, if only she weren't smarter, if only she didn't earn more money. I felt sorry for her but envied her, too, because she, at least, could cry and I could not.”