“And I watch my words from a long way off.They are more yours than mine.They climb on my old suffering like ivy.”

“Your welcome means more to me, Ivy Alisha Tamwood, than a thousand souls. Watching Rachel work is a wonder of one catastrophe after another.”

“Something I'd like to be perfect at? ... Loving you,' I said. The words climbed from my mouth. 'I'd want to be perfect at loving you.”

“I am fading away. Slowly but surely. Like the sailor who watches his home shore gradually disappear, I watch my past recede. My old life still burns within me, but more and more of it is reduced to the ashes of memory.”

“you were like an ulcer on the inside of my cheek that my tongue could not stop touching.loving you was like watching a stranger clean a week old wound; i felt sick, but i wanted more.”

“It's old, very old I think. Made up long ago in our hills. What my music teacher calls a mountain air. But the words are easy and soothing, promising tomorrow will be more hopeful than this awful piece of time we call today.”