“She was with Jude so rarely that when she was, every cell of her body rang with grateful knowledge of it.”

“She had suffered longer, and she had suffered more. Each second was agony in the first weeks. She was like an amputee in the days before anesthesia, half crazed with pain, astounded that the human body could feel so much and not die of it. But slowly, cell by painful cell, she began to mend. There came a time when it was no longer her whole body that burned with pain but only her heart. And then there came a time when even her heart was able, for a time at least, to feel other emotions besides grief... she learned how to exist apart.”

“I want to tell him that deep down each time Hannah looked at him she was grateful it was him because Jude did something that the others didn't. He came back for her.”

“Hatred had invaded her entire being; every cell in her body had hatred in it. She wondered if everyone could smell it on her. It smelled like death and coffee, like lilies and dirt, and it permeated her.”

“She didn't even have to smile, and she rarely did outside her house--it was the eyes, her dancer's carriage, the way she seemed to deliberate over the smallest movement of her body.”

“[Harriet] hated math. She hated math with every bone in her body. She spent so much time hating it that she never had time to do it.”