She went for so long without talking that silence became a habit. - Ida Fink

In the evening, in my spacious attic room, I wrote, "Will I find peace here? Peace. I yearn for peace." Out of habit, I hid the sheet of paper under the mattress, where it stayed, blank, except for that one line of fine handwriting at the top. (p228)

Each day and night of those weeks could fill a book, if only the pen could take on this burden of despair and helpless loneliness.

This time was measured not in months but in a word-we no longer said "in the beautiful month of May," but "after the first 'action,' or the second, or "right before the third."