“Mom's crying a bit, quietly, the way she always does. She never utters a sound even when she's crying, and that makes me a little sad. Doesn't seem right. When you cry, people should hear you. The world should stop. I squeeze Mom's hand and she squeezes back. I don't say anything, but at least she knows I've heard her. (Going Bovine)”

“She never utters a sound even when she's crying, and that makes me a little sad. Doesn't seem right. When you cry, people should hear you. The world should stop.”

“No one had ever said anything like that to Evie. Her parents always wanted to advise or instruct or command. They were good people, but they needed the world to bend to them, to fit into their order of things. Evie had never really quite fit, and when she tried, she’d just pop back out, like a doll squeezed into a too-small box.”

“I think that the lady dies not because she leaves the tower for the outside world but because she lets herself float through the world pulled by the current after a dream. Do you mean she should of paddled Cecily asks. Miss Moore laughs. In a manner of speaking yes. Ann stops drumming. But it wouldn't matter whether she paddled or not. She's cursed. No matter what she does she'll die. And she'll die if she stays in the tower too. Perhaps not for a long time but she will die. We all will. Miss Moore says softly.”

“Some mornings, she’d wake and vow, Today, I will get it right. I won’t be such an awful mess of a girl. I won’t lose my temper or make unkind remarks. I won’t go too far with a joke and feel the room go quiet with disapproval. I’ll be good and kind and sensible and patient. The sort everyone loves. But by evening, her good intentions would have unraveled. She’d say the wrong thing or talk a little too loudly. She’d take a dare she shouldn’t, just to be noticed. Perhaps Mabel was right, and she was selfish. But what was the point of living so quietly you made no noise at all? “Oh, Evie, you’re too much,” people said, and it wasn’t complimentary. Yes, she was too much. She felt like too much inside all the time. So why wasn’t she ever enough?”

“When the music is over, she keeps her head down till she finds her seat again, and I wonder how many times each day she dies a little.”

“She dances a little jig. "This would make one hell of a TV show, huh?" "Yeah. But no one would believe it." I should let it go. But it's like the hole, like the door, and I have to know. Or at least, I have to ask. "Hey, Dulcie, was any of that real?" She finishes her dance and the wings come to rest. "Who's to say what's real or not?" "Yeah, but--my barometer on reality, not so good since I started going crazy. "Yeah, well, who but the mad would choose to keep on living? In the end, aren't we all just a little crazy?”