“After conscientiously tasting fritters every day for a month Lola had put on two pounds! Her little belt bore witness to the disaster, she found herself obliged to move on to the next notch. She burst into tears.”

“She knew it should bother her more, being evil and all, but after she put on a little mascara and some lipstick and poured herself another cup of blood-laced coffee, she found that she was okay with it.”

“In the bedroom Sarah lay next to her son. She could hear movement in the kitchen and wondered if Doug had started preparing dinner. She longed for something sweet to eat. She had not been hungry for days, for weeks, for months, but now, with her son lying near her, she wanted the taste of sugar on her tongue. She would not move though. She didn’t know if she would ever be able to leave his side again.”

“In those early days of our relationship though, I always thought that she was so perfect that there had to be a catch. But there wasn't one. Five months and two days after our very first meeting, we were engaged and nine months after that we were married. And every day that I spent on this planet in the company of Ashling, I experienced the same sense of euphoria that I had tasted on our first date. I experienced something that in its simplest form can only be described as true love.”

“She had witnessed the world's most beautiful things, and allowed herself to grow old and unlovely. She had felt the heat of a leviathan's roar, and the warmth within a cat's paw. She had conversed with the wind and had wiped soldier's tears. She had made people see, she'd seen herself in the sea. Butterflies had landed on her wrists, she had planted trees. She had loved, and let love go. So she smiled.”

“but the whispered tone had latterly become more drowsy; and Margaret, after a pause of a few minutes, found, as she fancied, that in spite of the buzz in the next room, Edith had rolled herself up into a soft ball of muslin and ribbon, and silken curls, and gone off into a peaceful little after-dinner nap.”