“He must have been delightful," she said, "when he was alive!”
“God, the woman must have been a pain. When she was alive.”
“She searched her mind for a single day when it had felt good to be alive. There must have been one, surely?”
“When God designed the Marquesas... he must have been high.”
“She is sighing deeply now with sympathy and delight - the delight of an addict when someone else admits he's hooked, too.”
“All the first years, their only question had been -- asked with beseechings and tears that might have moved stone, in time, perhaps, but hearts are not stones: "Is he alive?" "Is she alive?”