“You ignorant, ill-bred foreigners! If you don't like the way I'm doing things out there, why don't you just pack up and go back to your own countries!”

“But, you see, what I like about you is not that you feel foreign. And I don't think you ever did feel entirely foreign. But I like the fact that something about you still resists, refuses to become familiar, remains invincibly foreign. And it means that when I'm with you, I'm always rubbing up against a foreign element, something mysterious, irreducible, ever present, and full of happiness…It makes the way you walk and some of the things you do feel foreign to me for a moment. Your voice, on the end of the phone, from time to time: foreign. Your perfume, its vetiver fragrance, your own delicate smell: both foreign. Your subtly sinuous thought processes are so foreign to my own meanderings, and yet clearer and sharper. Of course you are not a foreigner, but how I value this foreignness in you. Perhaps keeping that foreign element is the secret.”

“Caroline, do you value your neck?""Yes, I'm rather fond of it. Why?""Because if you don't shut up, I'm going to wring it.”

“But sometimes it's like you just meet someone and you just know that you're totally connected, and this person is, like, your brother - or your sister. Even if they don't, like, recognize it, you feel it. And in a lot of ways it don't matter if they do or they don't see that for what it is - all you can do is put the feeling out there. That's your duty. Then you just wait and see what comes back to you. That's the deal.”

“She just got out of the hospital. Why don't you go gossip behind her back, like decent people?”

“Don't give me that look. I'm not trying to find out who you are. I don't care who you are. I just want to know why it is you are the way you are.”