“She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick.”

“She would have to be a saint because that was the occupation that included everything you could know; and yet she knew she would never be a saint.... but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick.”

“She was getting over it. She could feel it. Maybe she would never entirely be over him, but she thought she was beginning to see that a fairly normal future could be hers again.”

“She could not bear the thought. She simply could not bear the thought that she might somehow prove to her grandfather that her mother had indeed been a fool and her father had been a damned fool and that she was the damnedest fool of them all.”

“...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.”

“Until that moment she had never thought she could do it. Never thought she would be brave enough or scared enough, or desperate enough to dare.”