“I knew her hair and her coloring and her shapes would be different next time, but the way she wore her body would keep on.”

“She kept walking. The very small, brave part of her brain knew that this would be her one chance. If she turned around, she would lose it.”

“When she made her way to the big picture window that framed the dining room table she froze. She stopped breathing. The anger was growing again.It grew up into her throat, where she could taste it, coppery like blood, in the back of her mouth. It grew down into her stomach, where it knotted her intestines. It made her arms stiffen and her shoulders lock. It pushed against her ribs until she felt they would snap like sticks.”

“She knew whose love she doubted. It wasn't her parents' and it wasn't her friends: It was her own. ”

“She was alive, and they were dead. She had to try to make her life big. As big as she could. She promised Bailey she would keep playing.”

“The most haunting thing was not that he didn't love her anymore. She could have accepted that eventually. The most haunting thing was that he did. He loved her from afar. He loved her in a way that was preserved in time, that couldn't be sullied. And she tended it in her careful, curatorial way.”

“The phone was her worst enemy and her best friend but she never knew which until she answered it.”