“The gentle smile had vanished, replaced by a frail, crooked imitation, and teary eyes, the same look from the portrait,”

“[…] she looks like a flower girl Sadie saw last summer at her aunt’s wedding; there is something so sombre about her and about that girl at the wedding too, and she wants to reach out and touch her, she doesn’t know why.”

“In this room, he is taught to hate, to carve, to examine minutely the details of another’s body laid bare.”

“…whenever I see a woman of a certain age I can’t help but wonder whether or not she has children, thinking of my mother who has always looked exactly the same…”