“She didn't want to be reminded of her past or how different her present was from the future she'd taken for granted.”

“It was as if he stopped time for them two weeks out of every year, cut them off from both the past and the future so that they had only this present in a brand-new place, this present in which her children sought the sight and the scent of her: a wonderful thing, when you noticed it. When the past and the future grew still enough to let you notice it. He did that for her. This man she'd married.”

“We inherit from our ancestors gifts so often taken for granted. Each of us contains within us this inheritance of soul. We are links between the ages, containing past and present expectations, sacred memories and future promise.”

“If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.”

“She could no longer borrow from the future to ease her present grief.”

“I just want to show her that her life is worth living, that she can't let her past dictate her future.”