“These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections-sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent-that happened after I was gone. And I beg...”

“I wanted to be the moron of the family, because morons seemed to have more fun, more freedom and more personality.”

“Nothing is ever certain.”

“Sometimes you cry, Susie, even when someone you love has been gone a long time.”

“Life is a perpetual yesterday for us.”

“Heaven is comfort, but it's still not living.”

“He would find his Susie,inside his young son. Give that love to the living.”

“My name is Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered.”