“He was a scribble of a man.”

“She deserved a man who could offer her the best of everything, not a lifetime of butcher's leftovers got on the cheap and a drop of condensed milk in her tea when they couldn't stretch to sugar. Jimmy was working hard to become that man, and as soon as he did, by God, he was going to marry her and never let her go.”

“Man konnte die Zeit nicht zurückdrehen, das war reines Wunschdenken, aber man konnte dem Jetzt auf andere Weise entkommen, und zwar indem man vorwärtsging.”

“Oh, there was harm indeed for a young lady flattered by the brief attentions of a handsome man.”

“In each man's heart there lies a hole. A dark abyss of need, the filling of which takes precedence over all else.”

“Then he led her to sit by him on a fallen gum trunk, smooth and white, and he leaned to whisper in her ear. Transferred the secret he and her mother had kept for seventeen years. Waited for the flicker of recognition, the minute shift in expression as she registered what he was telling her. Watched as the bottom fell out of her world and the person she had been vanished in an instant.”

“For the perfect gentleman was out there somewhere, waiting for her. He would be nothing like Father, he would be an artist, with an artist's sense of beauty and possibility, who didn't care two whits about bricks and bugs. Who was open and easy to read, whose passions and dreams brought light to his eyes. And he would love her, and only her.”