“For someone who needs refuge, a key is provided.”

“A waltz begins, that floating, sweet rhythm. The fiddle is plaintive. A few minutes ago she was at least pleasantly contented. Now certain of the notes dip into her like ladles and come up full of loneliness. The people in the room recede. They are strangers, every one.”

“His very limbs feel different, as if they know that sometime soon there might be a little softness, a little love to spend like money, and the body's whole business won't be to keep itself alive on skinflint rations. Yes, she is a pleasant girl, intelligent. And under him, or inside him, spring is banging its little green drum.”

“She does not flinch from the caress, because she feels very strong. She walks everywhere she goes but is never tired.”

“Everyone is drinking. She can feel them out there drinking, turning into beasts.”

“the joy of someone who had been a reader all her life, whose world had been immeasurably enlarged by the words of others.”

“Tarquin Vale. The Earl of Ashcroft.Plotocrat. Collector. Devotee of reformist politics.Rake. Debauchee. Hellspawn.Unwitting key to a future greater than she'd dreamed was possible.”