...whenever a woman describes a man as sweet, the dalliance is doomed.

To a man and woman, all of her elderly patients had been surprised to be old - which Avery privately regarded as a serious failure to pay attention.

They drummed into you that pain was good, you were supposed to go with it, push into the pain, and only... now... did I contemplate what retarded advice this was.

[T]he cardboard bookcase of her character had already collapsed under the strain.