“What the river was showing her now was that she could flow beyond the brokenness, redeem herself, and fuse once more.”

“...joy was something she willed herself to show us, something she raised from deep inside herself as a promise for what could be. Now her life seemed to have opened up into it as if it had been waiting for her. (215)”

“She could remember a time when she thought things could be right with her and Jack. Now it seemed like that was such a long time ago. How could she have ever told herself things were going to be alright? She now knew with every once of her being that there was absolutely nothing left of the man she had once loved.”

“She had grown older. And he loved her more now than he had loved her when he understood her better, when she was the product of her parents. What she was now was what she herself had decided to become.”

“Caroline had felt more comfortable thinking of beauty as something separate from her, like a scarf or a coat you could check before going in to a show. She wondered now, however, if she had treated more things as a part of herself rather than an accessory, perhaps everything would have turned out differently.”

“She was not to look beyond herself for the meaning of her life.”