“Lately, the world felt fragile, like a blown egg, as if it might shatter beneath a careless touch.”

“I felt on my back gentle pats like fragile wings just touching me, touching me: my grandchildren's hands.”

“Sharing his memories felt like handing over a sharp knife. A knife that others might handle carelessly. A knife that could be used to hurt him.”

“To what shall we compare our fragile life?Life is like a speck of dust that alights upon a surface. It remains there, unmoved, until a draft threatens it. When a breeze comes it holds on till the last. Finally, a gust of wind comes and it is blown asunder. That is how fragile life is, like a speck of dust blown to nothingness.”

“Happiness is such a fragile thing, isn't it? So easily burst, like a bubble blown by a child, and always on the verge of being carried away.”

“I felt as if the world I lived in was only a facade - that beneath its skin, a darker world raged and rampaged. I'd glimpsed that world before, but I'd never known how vast and malignant it might be.”