“She bought seeds and raided nurseries and mulched and composted and spent full days with her hands full of earth, coaxing life our of the dry, dull grass my father had spent years pushing a mower over.”

“We had spent years battling for control of our marriage, of our love story, our life story. I had been thoroughly, finally outplayed. I created a manuscript, and she created a life.”

“And the days are not full enoughAnd the nights are not full enoughAnd life slips by like a field mouseNot shaking the grass”

“I'll bet your father spent the first year of your life throwing rocks at the stork.”

“She pushed my chest like she wanted me off of her, but her fingers had my shirt clutched in them and I knew she was full of shit. She wanted me.”

“And Dorothea..she had no dreams of being praised above other women.Feeling that there was always something better which she might have done if she had only been better and known better, her full nature spent itself in deeds which left no great name on the earth, but the effect of her being on those around her was incalculable. For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts and on all those Dorotheas who life faithfully their hidden lives and rest in unvisited tombs. Middlemarch”