“You're dead, Cordelia.'No I'm not.'Yes you are. You're dead.Lie down.”

“By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you, I believe you're there, I believe you into being.”

“Glenn used to say the reason you can't really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you say, 'I'll be dead,' you've said the word I, and so you're still alive inside the sentence. And that's how people got the idea of the immortality of the soul - it was a consequence of grammar.”

“I guess you get all my money, I said. And I'm not even dead. I was trying for a joke, but it came out sounding macabre.Hush, he said. He was still kneeling on the floor. You know I'll always take care of you.I thought, already he's starting to patronize me. Then I thought, already you're starting to get paranoid.”

“You can forget who you are if you're alone too much.”

“You're not my real parents, every child has thought. I'm not your real child. But with orphans, it's true. What freedom, to thumb your nose authentically!”

“This is what I miss, Cordelia: not something that’s gone, but something that will never happen. Two old women giggling over their tea.”