“PERMALINK · 169465 · 15 HOURS AGO"She tried to feel sad, or guilty, or even to be angry about the way things had happened, but there frankly wasn’t much room in either her head or her heart for wishing or moping.”

“She wished with one part of her soul this weren’t real and with the other that it was, but wasn’t it just another goodbye either way?”

“She stares at her knife and wishes she were smarter about things. Wishes she knew how to say something wise or consoling to him, something that wouldn't sound frightened or awkward. But then she remembers the time after her parents' death, when people would approach her and try to explain her loss to her; they said things that were supposed to cure her of her sadness, but that had no effect at all. And she knew then, even when she was nine years old, that there was no wise or consoling thing to say. There were certain helpful kinds of silences, and some were better than others. ”

“There wasn’t anything that I didn’t love about her. Her sarcasm and wit were so much fun. She was strong and driven and so good with her creative thinking. She was so caring, and a good friend—she was everything I’d been looking for, when I wasn't even looking. But as strong as she tried to be, there was a vulnerability about her that made me feel so protective of her. I couldn’t help that I went all alpha male anytime a man approached her. She had no idea how attractive she is.”

“She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, ‘Which way? Which way?’, holding her hand on top of her head to feel which way it was growing; and she was quite surprised to find that she remained the same size. To be sure, this is what generally happens when one eats cake; but Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.”

“She slowly became convinced…that at the center of the universe not God but a tremendous deadness reigned. The stillness of a drunk God, passed out cold…She had learned of it in that house…where the drunks crashed…Things had happened to her there. She was neither raped nor robbed, nor did she experience God’s absence to any greater degree than other people did. She wasn’t threatened or made to harm anyone against her will. She wasn’t beaten, either, or deprived of speech or voice. It was, rather, the sad blubbering stories she heard in the house. Delphine witnessed awful things occurring to other humans. Worse than that, she was powerless to alter their fate. It would be that way all her life – disasters, falling like chairs all around her, falling so close they disarranged her hair, but not touching her.”