“The tension between her lack of control and her attempt to suppress it is horrible. It's like a fart in church.”

“It's like the Vatican's porn collection," Zeb told her. "Safe in our hands.”

“Nobody dies from the lack of sex. It's lack of love we die from.”

“I planned my death carefully, unlike my life, which meandered along from one thing to another, despite my feeble attempts to control it.”

“This has been her problem all her life: picturing other people's responses. She's too good at it. She can picture the response of anyone--other people's reactions, their emotions, their criticisms, their demands--but somehow they don't reciprocate. Maybe they can't. Maybe they lack the gift, if it is one.”

“But in the closeness of the sewing room, Simon can smell her as well as look at her. He tries to pay no attention but her scent is a distracting undercurrent. She smells like smoke; smoke, and laundry soap, and the salt from her skin; and she smells of the skin itself, with its undertone of dampness, fullness, ripeness - what? Ferns and mushrooms; fruits crushed and fermenting.”

“A prison does not only lock its inmates inside, it keeps all others out. Her strongest prison is of her own construction.”