“But this time of the year she was in her vaults, underground, and here she resided alone, spending most of her life in darkness, like a tongue”

“Everyone disliked their partners at some time or another, she knew that. But she’d spent her hours in the dark wondering whether she’d ever liked him. Would it really have been so much worse to spend those years alone? Why did there have to be someone else in the room while she was eating, watching TV, sleeping?”

“She felt as if she were imprisoned in a vault heaped with priceless treasures - an ever-growing hoard that threatened to crush the life out of her. There was no way out, either. The vault was impenetrable and she was far too deeply buried beneath a mountain of time to attract anyone's attention.”

“She was nervous about the future; it made her indelicate. She was one of the most unimportantly wicked women of her time --because she could not let her time alone, and yet could never be a part of it. She wanted to be the reason for everything and so was the cause of nothing. She had the fluency of tongue and action meted out by divine providence to those who cannot think for themselves. She was the master of the over-sweet phrase, the over-tight embrace.”

“She ever marry?""No."The no sounds like "not in a million years." Like Aunt Alice couldn't marry, like she has one arm and horns sticking out of her head and she talks in tongues. Or maybe has several tongues to talk with.”

“But the most important thing of all, to which she kept returning like a tongue probing a sore tooth, was the realization that she had fallen in love with her gaurdian.”