“Because photos are testimony that someone did live. A reminder of past we may have loved or hated. A piece of our lives.”

“No chance. It'd be like cutting off our hands.""Then learn to live without your hands.""No, because then we won't be able to do this," Ben says, giving him the finger [...]”

“Because without our language, we have lost ourselves. Who are we without our words?”

“A piece of me is gone," she told me once while we were bra shopping. "I think we're made up of all these different pieces and every time someone goes, you're left with less of yourself.”

“I can live without you,’ she said. ‘I can live without a man I’ve only known for one hundred and eighty days.’‘And how have those calculations helped?’ he demanded to know.She didn’t respond except for a look down her nose at him and a curl of her lip. So much for the angry half-spirits being responsible for the savages within them both. This was pure Quintana. ‘Then step away,’ he taunted. ‘If you can live without me, step away.’He felt her warm breath on his throat.‘Because you can’t,’ he said. ‘You think you can, but we’re bound, and not just by the gods or by a curse or even by our son. We are bound by our free will. And you can’t step away, because you are not willing.’He bent, his mouth close to hers.‘Step away,’ he whispered. ‘If you step away I’ll learn from you. I’ll find the desire in me to live without you. Much the same as you want to live without me.”

“Is a person worth more because they have someone to grieve for them?”

“You're going to go living. Because living is the challenge, Josie. Dying is so easy. Sometimes it only takes ten seconds to die. But living? That can take eighty years and you do something in that time, whether it's giving birth to a baby or being a housewife or a barrister or a soldier. You've accomplished something. To throw that away at such a young age, to have no hope, is the biggest tragedy.”