“She could have made a favourable impression on someone if she hadn't acted as though at any moment the city was going to step on her”

“How on earth could she now tell Armanoush that, though only nineteen, she had known many men's hands and did not feel a speck of guilt for it? Besides, how could she ever reveal the truth without giving the wrong impression to an outsider about "the chastity of Turkish girls"? This kind of "national responsibility" was utterly foreign to Asya Kasancı. Never before had she felt part of a collectivity and was accomplishing a pretty good impersonation of someone else, someone who had gotten patriotic overnight. How could she now step outside her national identity and be her pure, sinning self?”

“The thing about you, her mother used to say, is that you never act out of character. You have no originality. But Nigora knew this was not true. Because she was going to act out of character, She was going (thought Nigora) to be herself. And yet: how could she? How could she?”

“If someone had told Allie that she would commit a premeditated act of murder, she would not have believed it. She would have spouted off all the reasons how she could never be capable of such a thing—that no matter how dire the circumstances, she would find a better way. She was so naive, so arrogant to think that the laws of necessity and unthinkable circumstance could not apply to her. She could tell herself that this was an act of mercy, but that would be a lie. This was an act of war. An act of terrorism. It was nothing less than an assassination.If I do this, Allie told herself, I am no better than Mary. I will have sunk to the worst possible place a person can go. After this moment, I will be a cold-blooded killer and it can never be taken back.So the question was, did Allie Johnson have the strength to sacrifice all that was left of her innocence if it meant she might save the world?”

“But with a sigh he had released her hand, while she was so lost in the fantasy that she hadn't felt it go away, as if he'd known the best moment to let go.”

“In all honesty Phoebe never actually gave much thought to being Kevin's girlfriend. She fell into their relationship the way others fall asleep at the wheel. She hadn't known guys could be that sweet. Or maybe it hadn't occurred to her before that she might be attracted to someone who didn't treat her like a mild irritant. And he told her he loved her. Moreover, there were tines when she thought she loved Kevin, too. Though what she probably loved even more than Kevin was the idea of someone being in love with her. It seemed like a radical notion. It seemed like the "real thing”