“Isabel had gone silent in a way that shouted the silence to me.”

“Life's pain. You just have to get over as much of it as you can.-Isabel Culpeper”

“He'd only been gone two seconds, but the room got brighter when they were together, as if they were two elements that became brilliant in proximity. At Sam's clumsy efforts to carry the vacuum, Grace smiled a new smile that I thought only he ever got, and he shot her a withering look full of the sort of subtext you could only get from a lot of conversations whispered after dark.It made me think of Isabel, back at her house. We didn't have what Sam and Grace had. We weren't even close to having it. I didn't think what we had could get to this, even if you gave it a thousand years.”

“Afterward, Isabel drove me home and I shut myself in the study with Rilke, and I read and I wanted. And leaving you (there arent words to untangle it) Your life, fearful and immense and blossoming, So that, sometimes frustrated, and sometimes understanding Your life is sometimes a stone in you, and then, a starI was beginning to undertand poetry.”

“You want to talk? Fine. Talk. Tell me something you've never told anybody else.'I thought for a moment. 'Turtles have the second-largest brains of any animal on the planet.' It took Isabel only a second to process this. 'No, they don't.' 'I know that's why I've never told anybody that before.”

“One thousand ways to say good-byeOne thousands ways to cryOne thousand ways to hang your hat before you go outsideI say good-bye good-bye good-byeI shout it out so loudCause the next time that I find my voice I might not remember how.”

“Oh my God. What in—”I was going to be killed by two generations of beautiful women. While naked.“Mom,” Isabel snapped, interrupting. “Do you mind not staring? It’s totally perv.”