“The thing I loved about her was that I never felt like she was selling anything. She would talk to God as if she knew Him, as if she had talked to Him on the phone that day. She was never ashamed which is the thing with some Christians I had encountered.”

“At first, she could not talk. Perhaps it was the sudden bumpiness of love she felt for him. Or had she always loved him?”

“As his widow, she knew who she was and what she had inherited. She had loved him in her way and sometimes missed him. She knew what words like "loved" and "missed" meant when she thought of her husband. When she thought of Blunt, on the other hand, she was unsure what anything meant except the sonnets she had written about their love affair.”

“She felt that at some point she must finally and formally talk to Louisa about Hubert, and ask her to acknowledge that the worst possible thing had happened to her as well.”

“More than anything, more than anything she had with him, she missed the language they had invented, the likes of which she had never had nor would again. The thoughts and ideas he had birthed in her, his golden touch, and the words that erupted from her and became sparks of light to him.”

“If she had only known, things might have been different between us, but I could never talk to her about it"[Jimmy about Molly]”