“But Alfanhui didn't want to abuse the rosemary, because one shouldn't tell a lot in one day, since the stories lose their strength.”

“There are a lot of sad stories. It seems like everybody has one to tell.”

“Because there is a need to hear one story and to tell another.”

“And it wasn't that I didn't love Rob anymore; it was more like every day since I came home from California I felt like I was losing myself more and and more. And the relationship you have with yourself is the one that you really can't afford to lose.”

“I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.”

“She was doing it because she had nothing to lose, because her life was one of constant, day to day frustration.”