"Celia cannot decide which is worse, separation or death. Separation is familiar, too familiar, but Celia is uncertain she can reconcile it with permanence." p.6

"It seems to Celia that another woman entirely sat for years on those weathered cushions, drawn by the pull of the tides." p.8

"It seems to her that she has spent her entire life waiting for others, for something or other to happen." p.35

"She would not abandon a daughter to this life, but train her to read the columns of blood and numbers in men's eyes, to understand the morphology of survival." p.42

"I think of our afternoons in those measured shafts of light, that spent light, and I wish I could live underwater. Maybe then my skin would absorb the sea's consoling silence." p.49

"I think of everyone who might be awake with me — insomniacs, thieves, anarchists, women with children...