People are capable of great, great change during the span of one lifetime. And women even more than men.

Liz looks at the tissue box, which is decorated with drawings of snowmen engaged in various holiday activities. One of the snowmen is happily placing a smiling rack of gingerbread men in an oven. Baking gingerbread men, or any cooking for that matter, is probably close to suicide for a snowman, Liz thinks. Why would a snowman voluntarily engage in an activity that would in all likelihood melt him? Can snowmen even eat? Liz glares at the box.

Violence should not always beget more violence.

Covers matter. In my experience, a different cover can make you think you're reading an entirely different book.

In life, Jane reflected, the most interesting things tend to happen when you're on your way to do something else.

Our moment had passed somehow. I was different. He was, too. Without our “madness” to unite us, there wasn’t anything much there. Or maybe too much had happened in too short a time. It’s like when you take a trip with someone you don’t know very well. Sometimes you can get very close very quickly, but then after the trip is over, you realise all that was a false sort of closeness. An intimacy based on the trip more than the travellers, if that makes any sense.

It was a nice day, and I don't mean that it was sunny either. It was humid and not too cool, like winter was getting annoyed with itself and wanted it to be spring just as much as everyone else.