“It's a wonder they can sit down at all, and when they walk, nothing touches their legs under the billowing skirts, except their shifts and stockings. They are like swans, drifting along on unseen feet; or else like the jellyfish in the waters of the rocky harbour near our house, when I was little, before I ever made the long sad journey across the ocean. They were bell-shaped and ruffled, gracefully waving and lovely under the sea; but if they washed up on the beach and dried out in the sun there was nothing left of them. And that is what the ladies are like: mostly water.”

“You don't look back along time but down through it, like water. Sometimes this comes to the surface, sometimes that, sometimes nothing. Nothing goes away.”

“Then sail, my fine lady, on the billowing wave -The water below is as dark as the grave,And maybe you'll sink in your little blue boat -It's hope, and hope only, that keeps us afloat”

“When I saw that, the evidence left by two people, of love or something like it, desire at least, at least touch, between two people now perhaps old or dead, I covered the bed again and lay down on it. I looked up at the blind plaster eye in the ceiling. I wanted to feel Luke lying beside me. I have them, these attacks of the past, like faintness, a wave sweeping over my head. Sometimes it can hardly be borne. What is to be done, what is to be done, I thought. There is nothing to be done. They also serve who only stand and wait. Or lie down and wait. I know why the glass in the window is shatterproof, and why they took down the chandelier. I wanted to feel Luke lying besides me, but there wasn't room.”

“The body is so easily damaged, so easily disposed of, water and chemicals is all it is, hardly more to it than a jellyfish, drying on sand.”

“It's evening, one of those gray water-color washes, like liquid dust.”

“First maid:If I was a princess, with silver and gold,And loved by a hero, I'd never grow old:Oh, if a young hero came a-marrying me,I'd always be beautiful, happy, and free!Chorus:Then sail, my fine lady, on the billowing wave -The water below is as dark as the grave,And maybe you'll sink in your little blue boat - It's hope, and hope only, that keeps us afloat.”