“I don’t want to ever see her again, because I want to always remember her as she was—young and beautiful. She won't remember, because she was 88 when we met and suffering from dementia.”

“I hated to leave her and I hated tobe near her,because she made me remember what I wanted most to forget.”

“Before you tell me how we shouldn’t be doing this—” did she dare say what she was thinking? “—I want you to remember how it felt when we were together, because I know you’d like to feel that way again.”His hands tightened at her waist and his entire body hardened against hers. She drew back enough to see his face and caught her breath at his expression. Desire and want, need. Not sexual but…the need for closeness, for a connection. For her.”

“She regretted having taken his hand, she wanted to get away from there as soon as possible, to hide her shame, never again to see that man who had witnessed all that was most sordid in her, and who nevertheless continued to treat her with such tenderness.But again she remembered Mari's words: She didn't need to explain her life to anyone, not even to the young man standing before her.”

“I was flattered that she wanted to speak to me, because of all the older girls I admired her most. She asked me if I was going to the Red Cross and make bandages. I was. Well, then, would I tell them that she couldn't come that day? The officer looked at Daisy while she was speaking, in a way that every young girl wants to be looked at sometime, and because it seemed romantic to me I have remembered the incident ever since. His name was Jay Gatsby and I didn't lay eyes on him again for over four years--even after I'd met him on Long Island I didn't realize it was the same man.”

“She didn’t look back. I remember that more than anything else. She didn’t look back. I wanted to mean more to her than that. I wanted her to turn, because I was sure she’d change her mind. And perhaps she would have, and that’s why she didn’t.From the story 'Rain Dancing”