I used to think if you fell from grace it was more likely than not the result of one stupendous error, or else an unfortunate accident. I hadn't learned that it can happen so gradually you don't lose your stomach or hurt yourself in the landing. You don't necessarily sense the motion" (Part 1, Alice, Chapter 1, pg. 3.)

"She was speaking as if we always met each other and began com,paring the children's oxygen intake. Our small-town hospital was civilized, a place where babies were carried to full term and then born, where prostates were mended, and tonsils removed only when necessary. Children didn't go brain dead in the newly remodeled facility with track lighting and carpet on the walls" (Part 1, Alice, Chapter 2, pg. 27.)

"They could touch her anywhere they wanted now. They talked to her, and believed that her reason had returned, that she could now hear and...