“It's always the same old problem: how to find ourselves in the great yammering of ego and tragedy and discomfort and obsession with everyone else's destinies.”

“It is one of the major tragedies that nothing is more discomforting than the hearty affection of the Old Friends who never were friends.”

“What I'm trying to describe is that it's impossible to get out of your skin into somebody else's.... That somebody else's tragedy is not the same as your own.”

“The old with the old, the young with the young, the hostess by the tea table, on which there were exactly the same cakes in a silver basket as the Panins had at their soiree - everything was exactly the same as with everyone else.”

“He was the same as everyone else: he carried his past inside him. There was no escape from it. No matter how hard you push it down, the truth always comes to the surface.”

“Doctor Mahfouz was always yammering on about how everyone had humanity in them. From Mahlia’s experience, the doctor was sliding high, but now, as she looked at this sergeant named Ocho, she wondered if there was some bit of softness in this hard scarred boy that she might be able to work.”