It wasn't so easy though, ending the war. A war is a huge fire; the ashes from it drift far, and settle slowly.

Love is giving, marriage is buying and selling. You can't put love into a contract.

Jimmy had been full of himself back then, thinks Snowman with indulgence and a little envy. He’d been unhappy too, of course. It went without saying, his unhappiness. He’d put a lot of energy into it.

We are a society dying, said Aunt Lydia, of too much choice.

Good writing takes place at intersections, at what you might call knots, at places where the society is snarled or knotted up.

She knows herself to be at the mercy of events, and she knows by now that events have no mercy.

I felt white, drained of blood, cared for, purified. Peaceful.