“Sometimes Tally felt she could almost accept brain damage if it meant a life without reconstituted noodles.”

“Tally wondered if you could talk somebody out of their brain damage.”

“Sometimes a little brain damage can help.”

“Maybe maturity is merely accepting the tally of all the disappearing options of life.”

“I went upstairs to my room. Momentarily I felt a sense of calm, almost acceptance. Rest beyond the river. I knew now what that meant. It meant Nothing. It meant only silence forever.”

“She could feel the blood flowing within her and she felt that she must die or break forth into leaves and flowers. It was not passion she felt: not the passion of the body, though that was there, but rather an exultation, a reaching for life, for the whole of the life which she was capable, and in that life which she but dimly divined was centered love, the love for a man. She was not in love with Rantel: she was in love with what he meant to her as someone she could love.”