“No one knew what she was doing in Colonia Hidalgo, although it was most likely, according to the police, that she'd been taking a walk and had come upon death purely by chance.”

“It was strange. ... If she'd never gone to the Amazon, never met Ash, she would most likely have been perfectly content with Todd. She wouldn't have understood those fleeting flashes of emptiness that come upon a per¬son from time to time. Now she knew what they were: the yearning for what could have been, for the road never taken.”

“The past was speaking . . . what was the difference now? She had the feeling she'd walked into a house she thought she knew well and discovered a room she hadn't seen before. Maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe they did have a chance. ”

“And just like that, I'd been assessed and judged. Nurse Fashoda didn't know the first thing about me but she'd taken one look at my face and now she reckoned she knew my whole life story -- what had gone before and what was yet to come.”

“She had managed to go almost three weeks without being late. Admittedly on two of those days she'd perambulated around the office like someone doing a good imitation of the walking dead - but she'd been timely walking dead, damn it.”

“She had married him because she felt sage, because she'd had enough pain to last her a lifetime, and because although he had many faults, faults she was aware of before she married him, she knew he wouldn't hurt her.She knew because there was no passion, and the only time she had felt passion, it had come with a price.”