“The evenings grew longer; kitchen windows stayed open after dinner and peepers could be heard in the marsh. Isabelle, stepping out to sweep her porch steps, felt absolutely certain that some wonderful change was arriving in her life. The strength of this belief was puzzling; what she was feeling, she decided, was really the presence of God.”

“My grandmother stepped back into the kitchen to get their drinks. I had come to love her more after death than I ever had on Earth. I wish I could say that in that moment in the kitchen she decided to quit drinking, but I now saw that drinking was a part of what made her who she was. If the worst of what she left on Earth was a legacy of inebriated support, it was a good legacy in my book.~Susie's grandmother, Lynn pgs 315-316”

“She mounted the steps and took hold of the heavydoor knocker. It was shaped like a pair of angel's wings, and when she let it fall, she could hear the sound of echoing like the tolling of a huge bell. A moment later the door was yanked open, and Isabelle Lightwood stood on the threshlod, her eyes wide with shock. "Clary?" Clary smiled weakly. "Hi Isabelle." Isabelle leaned against the doorjamb, her expression dismal. "Oh, crap.”

“...She felt that nothing could kill her hope now, nothing. She was seventy-five and she was going to make some changes in her life.”

“She started off, walking fast, as if the speed of her steps could give form to the things she felt.”

“Once he had told her something that she could not imagine: that amputees suffer pains, cramps, itches, in the leg that is no longer there. That is how she felt without him, feeling his presence where he no longer was.”