Age is not so much a feature of your character, as the spot where you stand for a pretty fleeting time on the arc of your life.

When you feel someone else's pain and joy as powerfully as if it were your own, then you know you really loved them.

But it was smell that carried memory.

Polly was pretty good at dieting, all right, but she was beginning to wonder whether you ever lost the parts of your self that you wanted to lose.

She wondered if maybe tragedy was what it took to make your heart capable of admitting a new member.

So far, she’d been her usual lame self: solitary and routine-loving, carefully avoiding any path that might lead to spontaneous human interaction. Lena Kaligaris

The weather turned. Her skin seemed to grow a million extra pores, and all of them opened to take in the warmth and tenderness of the air. The sun on her face made her want to cry. Into all those millions of open pores came the sunshine, and other feelings as well. In and out. She was porous.