They were here all at once, but not together. Survival took self-absorption, and it made them strangers with nothing to do and no way to relate. Emergencies gave you a shape and a plot to take part in, while death was no story at all. It left you nothing.

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.

The bottom had arrived. She crashed against it, but it brought no sense of closure or understanding. She just lay there at the bottom looking up. She knew there must be a very tiny circle of light up there somewhere, but just now she couldn’t see it.

He's had a lot of chances to care, and he hasn't.

Sometimes you couldn’t face the sadness of being forgotten until you felt the comfort of being remembered again.

Tibby cried into her soup when it finally came. "I'm scared... ," she told it. The carrots and peas made no reply, but she felt better for having told them.

We forgive and forget. At least I forgive and he forgets.