“And sometimes,' Anne said softly, 'there's just plain love, Ellie. no reason for it, no need to explain'Then she leaned back on the couch, crossed her ankle over her knee and grinned. 'Perfect love,' she said. 'And what's that like?''When you find it, lil sis. You'll know.”

“All those years on the psychiatrist's couch and suddenly the couch is moving.Good God, she is on that couch when the big one hits.Maidy didn't tell you, but you know what her doctor said? She sprang from the couch and said, "My God, was that an earthquake?"The doctor said this: "Did it feel like an earthquake to you?”

“Just Save the Relationship"from the book Glimpses, Sis's Hinckley's advice to her grandaughter when she needed to know what to do about the fits her daughter was throwing. Just save the relationship.”

“Who are you in love with?" I said then.For a minute Marco didn't say anything, he simply opened his mouth and breathed out a blue, vaporous ring."Perfect!" he laughed.The ring widened and blurred, ghost-pale on the dark air.Then he said, "I am in love with my cousin."I felt no surprise."Why don't you marry her?""Impossible.""Why?"Marco shrugged. "She's my first cousin. She's going to be a nun.""Is she beautiful?""There's no one to touch her.""Does she know you love her?""Of course."I paused. The obstacle seemed unreal to me."If you love her," I said, "you'll love somebody else someday.”

“Olive Ann describes Sanna as 'a perfectionist and a worrier.' She is obsessed with the idea of finding happiness, and for her, as Olive ann wrote in her notes for the novel, 'happiness means being first with somebody, having perfect, loving children...The theme of Sanna is disillusionment,' Olive Ann wrote. 'Her life is the pursuit of happiness and perfection, but she finds happiness and perfection impossible to obtain-her idea of happiness is constant joy, no changes.”

“When he asked my grandmother if she would mind being poor, she said she would be happy just to have her daughter and himself: 'If you have love, even plain water is sweet.”