Quotes from Nancy Pickard

He didn't try to explain ozone to her, or how raindrops hit rocks, releasing the fragrance of oils that plants had rubbed on them, or how spores in the ground give up their own earthy scent in the rain. He just took her out and let her sniff and sniff until she admitted that, yes, it smelled good outside after a thunderstorm.

It had come as a relief when she had been forced to go into the hospital in Emporia, where she could be given drugs that made her sleep, sleep through an investigation that did not include her sons, sleep through the quiet departure of her older boy to another town, another college, and sleep through the funeral and burial of a beautiful girl who'd had a name, who'd had a family, who'd had a life.

His car....had the black-tinted windows I usually associated with south Florida or drug dealers. Or is that redundant?

tall women of Swedish descent attract attention that's way out of proportion to our relative importance to the world.

He didn't move back to allow me to walk by him, and so I had to brush heavily against him on my way out the door. I felt as if my body were metal to his magnet, and I had literally to pull away from him.

Marshall Field's Department Store....I spent - in more ways than one - the afternoon shipping in the vast and famous old store downtown....And then I had them mail a catalog home, too, jus tin case I'd missed something.

Life is short. If you have something to say, either spit it out or forget about it.