“Lists comforted her - they gave her a sense of accomplishment - they meant she had control of something.”

“Love meant something to her, she dreamt of it, thought of it, wrote of it. It was the one thing in life that had eluded her completely.”

“…always felt the pain of her friends so keenly that she could not speak easy, fluent words of comforting. Besides, she remembered how well-meant speeches had hurt her in her own sorrow and was afraid.”

“Was there another life she was meant to be living? At times she felt a keen certainty that there was ― a phantom life, taunting her from just out of reach. A sense would come over her while she was drawing or walking, and once while she was dancing slow and close with Kaz, that she was supposed to be doing something else with her hands, with her legs, with her body. Something else. Something else. Something else.”

“All her life she had believed in something more, in the mystery that shape-shifted at the edge of her senses.”

“Because being comfortable meant she might lower her guard, and she could not let that happen.”