The green eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent, willful, lusty with life, distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanor. Her manners had been imposed upon her ... her eyes were her own.

Once, when she was six years old, she had fallen from a tree, flat on her stomach. She could still recall that sickening interval before breath came back into her body. Now, as she looked at him, she felt the same way she had felt then, breathless, stunned, nauseated.

men are so conceited they’ll believe anything that flatters them

In the end what will happen will be what has happened whenever a civilization breaks up. The people who have brains and courage come through and the ones who haven't are winnowed out.

I was right when I said I'd never look back. It hurts too much, it drags at your heart till you can't ever do anything else except look back.

But she knew that no matter what beauty lay behind, it must remain there. No one could go forward with a load of aching memories.

Crackers are short on sparkle.