“She had the air of someone clinging to a wall of soap.”

“For all her chic thinness, she had an almost breakfast-cereal air of health, a soap-and-lemon cleanness, a rough pink darkening of the cheeks.”

“A pioneer is not someone who makes her own soap. She is one who takes up her burdens and walks toward the future.”

“How she still thought of Max every day and it was like someone had emptied her lungs of air, and she would catch at her heart, afraid she was dying.”

“Mrs. Kersey had not been questioned at all, as far as I knew. She had the air of someone with a story all made up to tell and no one to tell it to.”

“And most likely, that was the future in a nutshell, Sumire growing ever more distant. It made me sad. I felt like I was a meaningless bug clinging for no special reason to a high stone wall on a windy night, with no plans, no beliefs. Sumire said she missed me. But she had Miu beside her. I had no one. all I had was-me. Same as always.”