“Feuer soll'n's brunzen fur einen Monat!' she heard her call out. Translation: 'They should all piss fire for a month!”

“But the roaring of the fire,And the warmth of fur,And the boiling of the kettleWere beautiful to her!”

“[N]ames were what you wore forever, and she felt that she'd sent her daughters out in tacky rabbit fur coats when they should have been wrapped in mink.”

“There should be a statute of limitation on grief. A rulebook that says it is all right to wake up crying, but only for a month. That after 42 days you will no longer turn with your heart racing, certain you have heard her call out your name. That there will be no fine imposed if you feel the need to clean out her desk; take down her artwork from the refrigerator; turn over a school portrait as you pass - if only because it cuts you fresh again to see it. That it's okay to measure the time she has been gone, the way we once measured her birthdays.”

“I g-g-guess...I'm dead?" she heard her own voice call out, strangely high-pitched and thin.For a long time, she heard nothing else. And then:"Hi, Dead. I'm Dan.”

“In our country for all her greatness there is one thing she cannot do and that is translate a person wholly out of one class into another. Perfect translation from one language into another is impossible. Class is the British language.”