But she had felt since childhod that her life would n ot be ordinary. A moment would come- she would know it when she saw it- and everything would change.

This was her life. Not the life she had once dreamed of, not a life her younger self would ever have imagined or desired, but the life she was living, with all its complexities. This was her life, built with care and attention, and it was good.

It wasn't right. He knew that, but it was like falling: once you started you couldn't stop until something stopped you.

Norah looked at her son’s tiny face, surprised, as always, by his name. he had not grown into it yet, he still wore it like a wrist band, something that might easily slip off and disappear. She had read about people – where? she could not remember this either – who refused to name their children for several weeks, feeling them to be not yet of the earth, suspended still between two worlds.

She didn't love him and he didn't love her; she was like an addiction, and what they were doing had a darkness to it, a weight.

It's funny how things seem different, suddenly.

You can't stop time. You can't capture light. You can only turn your face up and let it rain down.