“Her pleasure went on and on, and so did Ben's. Ben could almost smell the gardenia, could almost see her pinning it on, her hands all thumbs."You're selling your store?" she said.There was radiance between them now. There were overtones and undertones to everything they said. The talk itself was formal, lifeless.--"Money Talks”

“Keep breathing," said Ben. "That's the big thing for now."--"Money Talks”

“It's so dark," she said lamely. "You want me to hold your hand?"Clary put both her hands behind her back like a small child. "Don't talk down to me.""Well, I could hardly talk up to you. You're too short.”

“She could smell the pages. She could almost taste the words as they stacked up around her.”

“She did not want to talk of her sorrow, but with that sorrow in her heart she could not talk of outside matters.”

“At 6:15 she was standing on her front porch watering gardenias and watching another line of thunderstorms split and go around her. The same thing happened almost every day. Some days they came so close all she could smell was the rain. The wind whipped up dust from the fields until it drove like buckshot into the shuddering mesquites, and Clara Nell started to pray. 'Jesus,' she whispered. 'Jesus, Jesus....' But the only thing that came out of the sky was her topsoil. Every day the wind took a little more, and it hadn't rained in almost a year.”