“There was a certain power beautiful mothers held over their less beautiful daughters.”

“When she looked in the mirror these days, she saw someone she didn't recognize...She saw an old woman trying to be beautiful, her skin dry and her wrinkles like cracks. She looked like a very well-dressed winter apple.”

“Books can be possessive, can't they? You're walking around in a bookstore and a certain one will jump out at you, like it had moved there on its own, just to get your attention. Sometimes what's inside will change your life, but sometimes you don't even have to read it. Sometimes it's a comfort just to have a book around. Many of these books haven't even had their spines cracked. 'Why do you buy books you don't even read?' our daughter asks us. That's like asking someone who lives alone why they bought a cat. For company, of course.”

“Everything had felt so precarious since her mother's death, like she was walking on a bridge made of paper.”

“Superstitions are man's way of trying to control things he has no control over...”

“When you're happy for yourself, it fills you. When you're happy for someone else, it pours over.”

“She'd always known he didn't love her. But it was easier to bear when he didn't know she loved him. That way they were even. Now he knew he had all the power.”