His love for her was so deeply woven with resentment that he could not untangle the two.

It seemed there was no end at all to the lies a person could tell, once she got started.

Away from the bright motion of the party, she carried her sadness like a dark stone clenched in her palm.

The city of Pittsburgh gleaming suddenly before her . . . so startling in its vastness and its beauty that she had gasped and slowed, afraid of losing control of the car

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.

Music is like you touch the pulse of the world. Music is always happening, and sometimes you get to touch it for a while, and when you do you know that everything's connetcted to everything else.

I love to swim, and I love being near water.