“She was so young how could she understand… Exactly how young was she Matthew’s mouth went dry. “Dearest how old are you ” “Almost twenty.” Damnation. He was a bloody cradle robber.”

“…tomorrow was her birthday, and she was thinking how fast the years went by, how old she was getting, and how little she seemed to have accomplished. Almost twenty-five and nothing to show for it.”

“She loved herself, and her body’s resistance to all those poisons was the exact measure of how indestructibly young and beautiful she felt she was.”

“Anne laughed and sighed. She felt very old and mature and wise — which showed how young she was.”

“Studying the young woman’s long thin legs, Tessa wondered how different her life would have been if she had had legs like that. She could not help but suspect that it would have been almost entirely different.”

“When you're young your mother shields you from the world because she thinks you're too young to understand, and when she's old you shield her because she's too old to understand - or to have any more understanding inflicted upon her. The curve of life goes: want to know, know, don't want to know.”