“Death never mattered at those times - in the early days I even used to pray for it: the shattering annihilation that would prevent for ever the getting up, the putting on of clothes, the wathchign her torch trail across to the opposite side of the common like the tail-light of a low car driving away.”

“I used to fear their deaths--the car! the dog! the sea! the germ!--until I realized it need never be a problem: on the trolley, on the way to the mortuary, I would put my hands into their ribs and take their hearts and swallow them, and give birth to them again, so that they would never, ever end.”

“I learned to write because I am one of those people who somehow cannot manage the common communications of smiles and gestures, but must use words to get across things that other people would never need to say.”

“Death is never swift... No matter how those left behind would like to comfort themselves with the thought. -Before Ever After”

“The boys crept to her side at early dark to sit around her, mournful, with their heads bowed down like they wished they knew how to pray the oldest prayers and pray her well. Harold held a cool cloth to her swollen eye. Sonny made fists and said, 'What was the fight about?' 'Me bein' me I guess.' 'How many was it?"' 'A few.' 'Tell us the names. For when we grow up.”

“Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.”