“It was always late at night, when everything and everyone else was quiet, that those voices would rise like ghosts, soft and haunting, filling your mind until sleep finally came.”

“There was an image in my mind—an expectation of what it would be like when I finally gave myself fully to a man. It wasn’t like this. It was always at night with candles flickering lazily, music filling the air with a sexy melody, and maybe a bubble bath. But no. It was infinitely better, and there was no froo froo, stereotypical scene that played out. It was incredible. Brilliant. Amazing. Indescribable, really. Like all the planets in the galaxy aligned for a perfect moment in time. As if this was the beginning of time. From now until the rest of eternity, everything finally had meaning.”

“They belonged to each other totally, and always would, and that was that.But maybe everyone felt that way? Until the moment they realized they were just like everyone else, and everything they'd thought was real shattered apart.”

“And the snow that fell onto the roof in winter... it fell softly... softly... and it covered the house, the armchair, the books, the children's voices. It covered Anna and Abel, covered their parallel world, and everything was finally, very, very quiet.”

“This was how I was dealing with everyone and everything lately, taking the good when it came, and the bad the same way, knowing each would pass in its own time.”

“The popular notion that ghosts are likely to be seen in a graveyard is not borne out by psychical research... A haunting ghost usually haunts a place that a person lived in or frequented while alive... Only a gravedigger's ghost would be likely to haunt a graveyard.”