“No one had told her this would happen, that her girlishness would give way to the solid force of wifehood, motherhood. The choices available were all imperfect. If you chose to be with someone, you often wanted to be alone. If you chose to be alone, you often felt the unbearable need for another body - not necessarily for sex, but just to rub your foot, to sit across the table, to drop his things around the room in a way that was maddening but still served as a reminder that he was there.”

“Jealous?' Luce asked. They were alone now. She threw her arms around his broad shoulders and looked deep into his violet eyes. 'Why would you be jealous?''Because,' he said, rubbing his hands across her back. 'Your dance card is full. For all eternity.”

“When you chose to follow the way of purity, did you expect it to be easy? When you decided to wait for the best, did you think that waiting would be fun? Did you think that your faith would not be tested? When you decided to take the narrow path, did no one warn you that difficulties, hardship, and tears would be part of the journey, and that you would often face rejection from others and be forced to walk alone? My daughter, that which you wait for the longest you treasure the most, and through much struggle the prize is won.”

“The Bible encourages us to “serve one another in love.” One of the ways you can work this out in your marriage is first to ask yourself, “Whose needs will this conversation serve?” Your needs and those of your husband often cannot be met in the same conversation. When it’s your husband’s turn to talk, practice staying in the box he wants to open. You see, when he brings up an issue for discussion, he actually intends to talk about that issue alone.”

“If I told you that everything about you had been just made up by someone, that all of your thoughts, all of your memories, even the things you chose to say had been invented and that they weren’t real, that you weren’t real, would you believe me? I don’t think so.”

“Edda danced in the ballet. That was her job. 'Job' was not the word other people chose to describe what Edda did, but the right word nonetheless. Words were queer that way, Edda often thought. They classified things. In her case they could place someone in another dimension.”