“She was afloat in bliss, grateful that she had a woman's body to tell him what words could not.”

“She loved him. It was a pale description of how she felt, but she could find no other words. To watch him, to hear him, to simply be in the same space with him made her heart sing.”

“Her amethysts lay upon her skin like sugared violets on cream.”

“(the dog) A warm bundle of copper coat.”

“Lesson number one, she muttered, love is beyond your grasp. Lesson two: nowhere is it written that you're guaranteed fairness. And three: there's only right and wrong.”

“They know the words, but not the music.”

“Garcia had traded his Sears electric guitar for an acoustic model shortly after arriving in Palo Alto, and late that spring Barbara bought him a better guitar, and shortly after that, a lovely sounding Stella twelve-string.”