“The Harelip had taken off her heavy shawl and draped it over a headstone. The grave was tilted and covered with moss, the name worn away by the weather. The person underneath had been forgotten and was no longer mourned by the world. But for a moment, Ren thought, the small black slate looked warmed, and grateful for being chosen.”

“He had never thought the question over clearly, but vaguely imagined that his wife had long suspected him of being unfaithful to her and was looking the other way. It even seemed to him that she, a worn-out, aged, no longer beautiful woman, not remarkable for anything, simple, merely a kind mother of a family, ought in all fairness to be indulgent. It turned out to be quite the opposite.”

“She had never been afraid to be Black in a White world, and she had sure taken a lot of abuse because of it.”

“The wind was picking up off the ocean now and the whole coastal scene had a bleak, abandoned look, as though Maine in November really belonged to the ragged gulls who wheeled over the sun-worn pier, and the humans had just gotten the news and taken a powder.”

“She looked as if she had been poured into her clothes and had forgotten to say "when". ”

“She hardly ever thought of him. He had worn a place for himself in some corner of her heart, as a sea shell, always boring against the rock, might do. The making of the place had been her pain. But now the shell was safely in the rock. It was lodged, and ground no longer.”