Chapter 1
"Dead. Or in a crazy house. Or married. I think she's married and quieted down and maybe right in this very city" (1.31).
Chapter 3
Like many people with a bold fondness for volunteering personal information, anything that suggested a direct question, a pinning-down, put her on guard (3.23).
Chapter 4
"We sort of just took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent and, so am I" (4.52).
Chapter 5
"If only I could get used to the idea of m-m-marrying a Brazilian. And being a B-b-brazilian myself. It's such a canyon to cross. Six thousand miles, and not knowing the language – " (5.16).
Chapter 6
Her bedroom was consistent with her parlor: it perpetuated the same camping-out atmosphere; crates and suitcases, everything packed and ready to go (6.3).
Chapter 7
She talked of her own [childhood], too; but it was elusive, nameless, placeless, an impressionistic recital (7.2).
Chapter 8
"But Holly! It's dreadful!" "I couldn't agree more; but I thought you wanted it" (8.6-8.7).
Chapter 9
"Every day she'd walk a little further: a mile, come home. Two miles, and come home. One day she just kept on" (9.18).
Chapter 10
"Good luck: and believe me, dearest Doc – it's better to look at the sky than live here. Such an empty place; so vague" (10.11).
Chapter 11
I stepped on Holly's dark glasses, they were lying on the floor, the lenses already shattered, the frames cracked in half (11.8).
Chapter 12
"[…] our understanding of each other had reached that sweet depth where two people communicate more often in silence than in words" (12.4).
Chapter 13
"No, idiot. This is serious. Look at me. […] You might have been killed" (13.25-13.27).
Chapter 14
"It makes me furious, the way these wretched people keep persecuting him. He's a sensitive, a religious person. A darling old man" (14.2).
Chapter 15
Only: what other friends of hers did I know? Perhaps she'd been right when she said she had none, not really (15.7).
Chapter 17
"Well, I might be rotten to the core, Maude, but: testify against a friend I will not" (17.24).
Chapter 18
"I told you. We just met by the river one day: that's all. Independents, both of us. We never made each other any promises. We never – " she said, and her voiced collapsed […] (18.14).
Chapter 19
But the address, if it ever existed, never was sent, which made me sad, there was so much I wanted to write her (19.1).