“The view, though. The view. It is undeniably exhilarating.”

“... she suddenly looks different to Olympia, physically different, as though a portrait has been alterred. And Olympia thinks that possibly such adjustments might have to be made for everyone she knows. Upon meeting a person, a sketch is formed, and for the life of the relationship, however intimate or not, a portrait is painted, with oils or pastels or with black ink or with watercolor, and only at a persons's death can the portraits be considered finished. Perhaps not even at the person's death.”

“Webster, as if he's done it every day of his life, as if he did it just the day before, trails his fingers from the small of Sheila's back to the nape of her neck.Sheila turns her head, "Go slowly and be careful," she says.”

“Voltage crossed the distance between Sheila and Webster. A current composed of anger and remorse and something else-the last flicker of attraction”

“Love is not simply the sum of sweet greetings and wrenching partings and kisses and embraces, but is made up more of the memory of what has happened and the imagining of what is to come.”

“In the time it takes for her to walk from the bathhouse at the seawall of Fortune's Rocks, where she has left her boots and has discreetly pulled off her stockings, to the waterline along which the sea continually licks the pink and silver sand, she learns about desire. ”

“the enduring struggle to capture in words the infinite possibilities of a life not lived.”