“When a daughter loses a mother, the intervals between grief responses lengthen over time, but her longing never disappears. It always hovers at the edge of her awareness, prepared to surface at any time, in any place, in the least expected ways.”

“Grief, a type of sadness that most often occurs when you have lost someone you love, is a sneaky thing, because it can disappear for a long time, and then pop back up when you least expect it.”

“She lets out the deep, horrible wails waiting just below the surface. These tears are always accumulating, intensifying inside her. She pushes them down over and over, a hundred times a day—every time she hears a child’s voice, or examines a patient’s small body—until that moment comes. It always happens when she least expects it, a moment when she’s doing nothing at all: rinsing her coffee mug, unlacing her shoes, combing her hair. And in that moment when she is unsuspecting, the tears finally rage uncontrollably, from someplace deep, deep inside her she barely recognizes.”

“When guys come over to date my daughter, I'm going to tell them, "I want you to go out and have a very good time with my daughter. I want you to enjoy yourself and have her home on time. If you abuse her in any way, I'm going to kill your mother and father, cut your back open, pull out your spine, and leave you in a wheelchair so you can think about what you did for the rest of your life. Now, go out and have a good time!”

“Certain things existed out of time. It was ten years ago, it was this morning. In that way the accident was like his mother's death. It did not recede so much as hover, waxing and waning at different intervals but always there. It happened in the past and it was always happening. It happened every single minute of the day.”

“Mrs. Loontwill did what any well-prepared mother would do upon finding her unmarried daughter in the arms of a gentleman werewolf: she had very decorous, and extremely loud, hysterics.”