She held herself very straight, like Audrey Hepburn, whom all women idolize and men never think about.

The zipper opened all the way down our spines.

My family suffered. My hair turned up in every corner, every drawer, every meal. Even in the rice puddings Tessie made, covering each little bowl with wax paper before putting it away in the fridge--even into these prophylactically secure desserts my hair found its way! Jet black hairs wound themselves around bars of soap. They lay pressed like flower stems between the pages of books. They turned up in eyeglass cases, birthday cards, once--I swear--inside an egg Tessie had just cracked. The next-door neighbor's cat coughed up a hairball one day and the hair was not the cat's.

She understood that her heart operated on its own instructions, that she had no control over it or, indeed, anything else.

that since Cecilia’s suicide, the Lisbon’s could hardly wait for the night to forget themselves in sleep

The television replaced the sound of conversation that was missing from my grandparents' lives.

What if you had faith and performed good works, what if you died and went to heaven, and what if all the people you met there were people you didn't like?