“Endless days of dark indoors and hateful glances are enough to set a rime on anyones bones.”

“Sometimes, people never stood a chance in the beginning. Or they might have made a mistake. When people start saying things like she must be a bad mother because of that mistake." .... "It's not fa...”

“I prefer a story to a prayer.”

“Agnes: "I have a question for you, speaking of truth. You say God speaks the truth." Tti: "Yes." Agnes: "And God said: 'Thou shalt not kill.'Tti: "Yes. Tti said carefully." Agnes: "Then Blondal and...”

“Together they listed the people they had known who had died on the mountains. A bleak conversation to have, thought Margrt, but there was some comfort in talking about death aloud, as though in nam...”

“[W]hen it's slow, they send you home, and when it's busy, they expect you to stay late. They also expect you to be able to come in to cover someone's shift if a co-worker gets sick at the last minu...”

“Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to p...”

“A man may beg, but a woman has to sell.”