By the time they were pulling into the parking lot of the A&P, the mood was fading, the moment gone. Amy could feel it go. Perhaps it was nothing more than the two doughnuts expanding in her stomach full of milk, but Amy felt a heaviness begin, a familiar turning of some inward tide. As they drove over the bridge the sun seemed to move from a cheerful daytime yellow to an early-evening gold; painful how the gold light hit the riverbanks, rich and sorrowful, drawing from Amy some longing, a craving for joy.

She didn't like to be alone. Even more, she didn't like being with people. (148)

People like to think the younger generation's job is to steer the world to hell. But it's never true, is it? They're hopeful and good - and that's how it should be.

All these lives," she said. "All the stories we never know." (125)

My first job was when I was about 12, cleaning houses in the afternoons for different elderly women in town. I hated it.

The key to contentment was to never ask why; she had learned that long ago.

Traits don't change, states of mind do.