“She used to be a mathematician. Now she looks for omens and signs. At one time she thought math would clarify the world for her. She knew her link to real things was weak [...] She had hoped knowledge of mathematics, the world's rules, might strengthen her hold. But it did not. The world turned opaque and medieval, its every event mysterious. Now she uses a private mathematics, one made from omens and signs and dreams.”

“Still, he's Emory. He doesn't have to walk her home, especially considering how snitty she was to him. He didn't have to come in and stop her cruelty to Fay, or watch over her as he has evidently been continuing to do, drawing those pictures on the Reeses' sidewalk. She knew the pictures were for her and her children. She and Emory did not always spell things out, but she knew, when he drew pictures, what they meant.”

“That was one helpful thing he said to her, the first thing that caught her attention. "Start your life." Because she had assumed that her life was over.”

“She knew what she looked like - someone at the edge of catastrophe, someone already flinching from a blow that had not yet been delivered.”

“Like most good looking women, she was never sure of her beauty, and had to keep checking on it, to make sure it was still there.”

“Her body was heavy and tired, and she thought, I can't carry myself another step into this life.”

“Her own dolls were either babies or storybook characters like Cinderella and Snow White who though past childhood were somehow not yet into the world, girls who kept themselves apart from the world without really knowing what for. Now girls know what for. They menstruate when they are ten, and their dolls are sluts.”