The engagement ring is an emerald, and the dim light from the window is refracted green and white in it. The rings are silver, and they need cleaning. They need wearing, and I know just the girl to wear them.

Martin said, "It feels as though part of my self has detached and gone to Amsterdam, where it—she—is waiting for me. Do you know about phantom-limb syndrome?" Julia nodded. "There's pain where she ought to be. It's feeding the other pain, the thing that makes me wash and count and all that. So her absence is stopping me from going to find her. Do you see?

‎I never wanted to have anything in my life that I couldn't stand losing. But it's too late for that.

Sometimes a thing is—too much—and it has to be isolated and put away." Martin shrugged. "So what's in the boxes is—emotion. In the form of objects."-Her Fearful Symmetry

It was silly, wasn't it? But the singing made it not silly.

one of the best and the most painful things about time traveling has been the opportunity to see my mother alive.

Do you ever miss him? Every day. Every minute. Every minute, she says. Yes, it's that way, isn't it?