“I once asked her if she got bored living alone, and she said, 'To say one is bored to be alone is to admit that one has no inner resources.”

“Just when you think life is a bitch, it has puppies.”

“She was the only doctor's wife in Branford, Maine, who hung her wash on an outdoor clothesline instead of putting it through a dryer, because she liked to look out the window and see the clothes blowing in the wind. She had been especially delighted, one day, when one sleeve of the top of her husband's pajamas, prodded by the stiff breeze off the bay, reached over and grabbed her nightgown around the waist.”

“Then, recalling what he had said, she turned to him eagerly. “What’s my surprise?”Most Ancient turned and reached for something that was behind him. He picked it up and placed it in her arms, and it looked up at her with wide, curious eyes. It was what she had once been: tiny, a wisp of a thing, with a mischievous smile and a trusting, visible heart.“Oh!” she cried. She hugged it to her, against her badge. “What’s its name?”“Ask it,” Most Ancient suggested.“Who are you?” she asked the diminutive, transparent creature in her arms, keeping her voice calm so that it wouldn’t be scared.“New Littlest,” it told her.She was puzzled and almost frightened at first. The she thought, Of course! Most Ancient could not have always have been Most Ancient, and Thin Elderly must once have been something else. Even Fastidious – well, maybe not. Perhaps she had always been Fastidious.She cradled New Littlest, moving her hands as gently as possible around the fragile little thing, and turned back to ask Most Ancient what she needed to know.“Who am I now?”“Gossamer,” he told her.”

“Memory is the happiness of being alone.”

“And it was lonely, to yearn, all alone.”

“Thomas," she suggested, "you and I? We're the ones who will fill in the blank places. Maybe we can make it different.”