“You lying liar," Vaan said, "who lies to me with lies. Nobody actually likes Shakespeare! They just pretend to sound more cultural and pretentious.”

“You’re a liar, Cassel Sharpe. A lying liar who lies.”

“I'm a lying liar who lies.”

“Man is like a star, they both need to emanate to be.”

“From above you could see the chaos of entangled plots on the other side of the road, and a couple of tough tethered goats, and the glint of a frozen pond somewhere in the trees. Above them the sun was shining vaguely through the milky November sky, old but strong. In April – between the thaw and the jungly green explosion of summer – or in raw mid-October, I bet the same view would have been barren and depressing. But when we stood there all the bits of old tractors and discarded refrigerators, the shoals of empty vodka bottles and dead animals that tend to litter the Russian countryside were invisible, smothered by the annual oblivion of the snow. The snow let you forget the scars and blemishes, like temporary amnesia for a bad conscience.”

“This is the only profession in which another human being can crap, pee and puke on you and you still think they're cute.”

“That's what I learned when my last Russian winter thawed. The lesson wasn't about Russia. It never is, I don't think, when a relationship ends. It isn't your lover that you learn about. You learn about yourself.”