“If they tell you that she died of sleeping pills you must know that she died of a wasting grief, of a slow bleeding at the soul.”

“["What happens to people when they die?"When she heard that, her grandmother made a sound that was not like a voice but a moan. And with a deep breath, she replied, "I don't know. To tell you the truth, I've never died."]”

“She didn't tell me how to live, and I didn't tell her how to die. We let sleeping dogs lie.”

“Evelyn was an insomniac so when they say she died in her sleep, you have to question that.”

“You have to slow down with this woman, because the moment she slows down and stops, she’ll die. She’s like a shark.” That’s what I told Renaldo, but how was I to know his girlfriend was literally a shark?”

“She wanted to die. She wanted to die. Because then it would be over. All the loss, all the grief, all the pain, the emptiness - over. And she had said nothing then. Nothing. Nor had she crawled into her room and swallowed her mother’s pills, or crawled into her bath and opened up her own wrists. As if death were somehow personal. As if death were somehow an enemy that could be faced and stared down, she would not give it the satisfaction of seeing how badly it had hurt her. Again.”