Serena

It's a hard place this world can be. No wonder a baby cries coming in to it. Tears from the start

Don't love anything that can be taken away.

She realized that being starved for words was the same as being starved for food, because both left a hollow place inside you, a place you needed filled to make it through another day. Rachel remembered how growing up she’d thought living on a farm with just a father was as lonely as you could be. (130)

What made losing someone you loved bearable was not remembering but forgetting. Forgetting small things first... it's amazing how much you could forget, and everything you forgot made that person less alive inside you until you could finally endure it. After more time passed you could let yourself remember, even want to remember. But even then what you felt those first days could return and remind you the grief was still there, like old barbed wire embedded in a tree's heartwood.

You got one choice at the beginning but if you didn't choose right, things got narrow real quick.

Nothing is but what is now

It’s ever been the way of the man of science or philosophy. Most folks stay in the dark and then complain they can’t see nothing.” – Snipes (185)

It struck her how eating was a comfort during a hard time because it reminded you that there had been other days, good days, when you’d eaten the same thing. Reminded you there were good days in life, when precious little else did. (268)

And darkness. You can’t see it no more than you can see air, but when it’s all around you sure enough know it.

One thing's sure and nothing surer. The rich get richer and the poor get- children

Others can make us vulnerable and the sooner such vulnerabilities are dealt with the better

We want what's in this world but we also want what ain't.

A small profit it better than a big loss

I don’t even have a choice. Rachel thought how that was pretty much true of everything now, that you got one choice at the beginning but if you didn’t choose right, and she hadn’t, things got narrow real quick. Like trying to wade a river, she thought. You take a wrong step and set your foot on a wobbly rock or in a drop-off and you’re swept away, and all you can do then is try to survive. (83)

We had some good times at school. I didn't know how good those times was till I left, but I guess that's the way of it

You men notice so little, Pemberton. Physical strength is your gender's sole advantage.

A kind of annihilation, was what Serena called their coupling, and though Pemberton would never have thought to describe it that way, he knew her words had named the thing exactly.

She’d never known fear had a taste, but it did.

It struck her how eating was a comfort during a hard time because it reminded you that there had been other days, good days, when you’d eaten the same thing.

I missed that one,' Henryson said. 'The war, I mean.' 'Don't worry,' Snipes said. 'Another one's always coming down the pike. That's something all your historians and philosophers agree on. A feller over in Germany looks to be ready to set a match to Europe soon enough, and quick as they snuff him out there'll be another to take his place.

Rachel felt the grief grow so wide and deep it felt like a dark fathomless pool she'd never emerge from. Because there was nothing left to do now, nothing except endure it.

But as Rachel watched the sheriff enter the front door, it was hard to believe the farmhouse itself was still there, because a place where something so terrible had happened shouldn't continue to exist in the world. The earth itself shouldn't be able to abide it.

It amazed Rachel how much you could forget, and everything you forgot made that person less alive inside you until you could finally endure it. After more time passed you could let yourself remember, even want to remember. But even then what you felt those first days could return and remind you the grief was still there, like old barbed wire embedded in a tree's heartwood. And now this brown-eyed child. Don't love it, Rachel told herself. Don't love anything that can be taken away.

The world lies all before us.

A great business investment, religion. I’ll take it over government bonds anytime.

You Men notice so little Pemberton, Physical strength is your genders sole advantage" - Serena

It’s a hard place this world can be. No wonder a baby cries coming into it. Tears from the very start.