I will come back as a little breeze. You will feel me on your face, and you will know that I am still listening. So you can still talk to me.

Reading Claire Cooks novel is like eating some exotic dish about which you say, Wow, this is great! Whats in it? The ingredients here are: intelligence, humor, poignancy, revelation and, perhaps best of all, true originality. Ready to Fall seems to me to be ready to soar.

I felt myself trapped in line for a ride I was not nearly ready for, looking back but moving forward in the only direction I could go.

I will come back as a little breeze. You will feel me on your face, and you will know that I am still listening. So you can still talk to me.

It is such a terrifying thing to see a man cry.

Oh just wait. It takes a lot of time, that's all...You'll have come to a certain kind of appreciation that moves beyond all the definitions of love you've ever had. A certain richness happens only later in life. I guess its' a kind of mellowing. p 80 talking about marriage and husbands

It's amazing how smart the body is. Though maybe we could do without loving. I think it's overrated, and I think it's too hard. You should only love your children; that is necessary, because otherwise you might kill them. But to love a man? It's overrated, and it's too hard and I will never, ever do it again.