“She always used to suspect that the price for happiness, the price for enjoying the company of a person you loved, was the steadily increasing risk of losing them, and at times, when she considered the possibility that she might lose Isabel or Clancy or, in the early days, Todd, Bernice didn't think she could stand it, didn't think she could go on living in a universe whose laws forced her to submit to such a terrible fear. Now she sees what a small price it is to pay, what staggering joy she received in return. You should be willing to pay that price for as little as a few days or hours with a person you love, she thinks, rubbing her fingers across a patch of linoleum the years have worn down to a cloudy smear.”

“She broke my heart. I didn't like that much. But that was the price. In this world, you get what you pay for.”

“Personal growth has its price, and she was paying it without complaint.”

“if shes says no, then you have to assume she means it...because if you force her to do something she doesn't want to do, then your in big trouble mister... and even if she says no, and really means yes, the quite frankly she's playing games and isn't worth the price of dinner.”

“For now she is small. For now she still thinks in terms of that little town, her concepts stuck, rigid. Eight days, she thinks. Eight days and she will leave. Not a day sooner. Not a day later. She wouldn’t want to risk ruining the possibility of all that her future may hold. All of it, for her, hanging on two rings on top of each other that when connected, she could trace forever.”

“Decades ago, I'm told, my sister-in-law...was stepping out of the shower in the bathroom of her all-women's dorm, and she heard the call "Men on the floor!" At many schools, this would have been a non-event, but she was in a highly conservative religious college. She was naked. She had only a small towel to cover herself, and there were men prowling the hallways. She could hear them. She waited, but they didn't go away. So she began to think about which part of her body to cover with the towel. It barely fit across her bottom or her top. It certainly didn't cover both. She had to make a choice. Finally, she had an inspired idea. She threw the towel over her head and scampered naked to her room. Given the options, it was more important for her to cloak her identity than her body.”

“Tall, aren't you?" she said. "I didn't mean to be."Her eyes rounded. She was puzzled. She was thinking. I could see, even on that short acquaintance, that thinking was always going to be a bother to her.”