“Milkman could hardly breathe. Hagar's voice scooped up what little pieces of heart he had left to call his own.”

“He lay in his stony crypt like his own corpse, hardly breathing, his heart hardly beating - and yet lived as intensively and dissolutely as ever a rake had lived in the wide world outside.”

“What little strength he had left flowed out of him and was soaked up; his bones and veins and skin held nothing but tiredness and pain.”

“Mission of mercy, he said, straightening up, his voice so cold, he could have owned the patent.”

“She looked up at him with a smile. The smile broke what was left of his resistance - shattered it. He had let the walls down when he'd thought she was gone, and there was no time to build them back up. Helplessly he pulled her against him. For a moment she clung to him tightly, warm and alive in his arms. Her hair brushed his cheek. The color had come back into the world; he could breathe again, and for that moment he breathed her in - she smelled of salt, blood, tears, and Tessa.”

“When his grandchildren had been little, they had asked if they could hide inside the clock. Now he wanted to gather them and open himself up and hide them among his ribs and faintly ticking heart.”