“Why, the club was just the quietest place in the world, a place where a woman could run in to brush her hair and wash her hands, and change her library book, and have a cup of tea.”

“Her library is a meeting place for all who love books. They discuss matters of the world and matters of the spirit.”

“...he could sense her breathing, her temple against his jaw and her shoulder under his hand were warm, her hair smelt of well-brushed hair, he could feel the presence of her body...”

“I thought about how I'd held her in my arms and run my hand through her hair, along her cheeks, and down her neck, how her lower lip opened just slightly when I brushed my fingers against her breast...”

“If he closed his eyes he could dwell in the circuit of air that had once held her, he could hold his breath and be inside her again, within the close and burning borders of her- she stood here, washed her hair in this sink, wrote upon this wall, ate roasted chicken at this table. There was no place he could enter where she had not also been, her echoes hanging in the air like pages hung to dry. No place that did not suppurate in her absence, which was not ringed with the light of her old selves, like film burned with a cigarette.”

“The beauty of a woman is seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.”