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

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.

Its impossible to control the reception of your work - the only thing you can control is the experience of writing itself, and the work you create.

Her voice, high and clear, moved through the leaves, through the sunlight. It splashed onto the gravel, the grass. He imagined the notes falling into the air like stones into water, rippling the invisible surface of the world. Waves of sound, waves of light: his father had tried to pin everything down, but the world was fluid and could not be contained.

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

She had died at age twelve, and by now she was nothing but the memory of love-- nothing, now, but bones.

They turned a distracted gaze on the world, wide-eyed, somehow, and questioning.