“So childhood too feels good at first, before one happens to notice the terrible sameness, age after age.”

“I've often noticed" Fiona said, "that when people say, 'This can't happen in this day and age', they say it because it is happening.”

“She always says she doesn't believe women should get married before the age of thirty-five...she says women change so much in their twenties, they can't possibly know who they are, and the choices they make before the age of thirty are rarely good ones.”

“Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age. The child is grown, and puts away childish things. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.”

“Thoughts arise in the hostage's tormented brain. In the hospital, patients feel they are returning to childhood; in prison, they age. The gods blind themselves.”

“After a childhood of hungering to be an adult, my hunger had passed. Unexpected fates had begun to catch my notice. These middle-aged women seemed very tired to me, as if hope had been wrung out of them and replaced with a deathly, walking sort of sleep. ”