“I knew full well that Lane considered himself more family than servant to my uncle, and that my uncle felt the same; the only real question was who considered himself the father and who the child.”

“Warm sun and robin's-egg skies were inappropriate conditions for sending one's uncle to a lunatic asylum.”

“I said, 'tart'!" she snapped.Lane's brows went up, but I merely continued to smile, choosing to assume that her answer was a reference to where the berries should go, and not to my person.”

“Far from making me feel different and special, my [spiritual] experiences made me feel the same, ordinary, and interconnected. If I felt more spiritual, everyone else felt more spiritual as well. (276)”

“She was the clock, a clock that had lost its key, unwinding in the dark.”

“The seat belt irked his father more than Uncle Colin's not eating meat, because, though his father never said it, Larry knew he considered seat belts cowardly.”

“... I somehow convinced myself that she knew how I felt, and that she probably felt the same way.”