“I was wishing I was invisible. Outside, the leaves were falling to the ground, and I was infinitely sad, sad down to my bones. I was sad for Phoebe and her parents and Prudence and Mike, sad for the leaves that were dying, and sad for myself, for something I had lost.”

“...the sun would leave my sky if I couldn't assume you'd simply come and tell me you were sad.”

“I get so sad that sad gets to be.So scared that all my feelings they up and leave me. I got so city girl on you. I go so crazy I don't know what to do.”

“Yes, I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness, sad as an eagle without wings, sad as a violin with only one string and that one broken, sad as a woman who is growing old. Sad, sad, sad...”

“Well--" My mother paused, and her tone was reflective in that way that is inevitably sad, because the past is sad. "What I remember," she said, "is that you were always such a dear little girl.”

“On that night after Phoebe had given her Pandora report, I thought about the Hope in Pandora's box. Maybe when everything seemed sad and miserable, Phoebe and I could both hope that something might start to go right.”