“Who was she, what was she that she should hold herself superior? What view of life, what design upon fate, what conception of happiness, had she that she pretended to be larger than this large occasion? If she would not do this, then she must do great things, she must do something greater.”

“She got tired of herself. She got tired of not being able to say what she wanted or do what she wanted or even want what she wanted.”

“Maybe there was no happily ever after [...] but there was happiness sometimes and she had it now, doing what she knew she was born for.”

“She wasn't certain of exactly what they had together; she doubted Owen knew, either; but whatever it was, she desperately wanted to hold on to it. They were only at the beginning of what they could become together; if she could help it, she would do anything that she could to keep it from ending.”

“She thought she would do something with them someday, although she could not have said what and in fact she never did.”

“For she was a child, throwing bread to the ducks, between her parents who stood by the lake, holding her life in her arms which, as she neared them, grew larger and larger in her arms, until it became a whole life, a complete life, which she put down by them and said, "This is what I have made of it! This!" And what had she made of it? What, indeed?”