“People said things they didn't mean all the time. Everybody else in the world seemed able to factor it in. But not Lena. Why did she believe the things people said? Why did she cling to them so literally? Why did she think she knew people when she clearly didn't? Why did she imagine that the world didn't change, when it did? Maybe she didn't change. She believed what people said and she stayed the same." (Lena, 211)”

“It wasn't that Mattie didn't believe in God. She did, she most surely did. She just didn't like some of the things He did, is all.”

“For those she liked she did things; to those she didn't like she did other things.”

“Like why Lena always thought of Ritz crackers when she shaved her legs. Who knew why? And did it even matter?”

“Sometimes Peter treated her like she was the only thing in the forest. Sometimes he was so distracted by the things around him that she had to keep up or be left behind. But a lot of times, she knew he did it on purpose, and she didn't have to know why. He seemed to have reasons for doing things even he didn't understand.”

“She discarded whole chunks of life that obsessed other people. She didn't torture people she loved, nor did she hunger for them. She kept it simple.”