“She makes a very beautiful corpse, sir. It's quite a privilege to attend on her. It's not too much to say that she will do credit to our establishment!”

“Wanderer: You don't really feel that way about me you know. It's this body... she's pretty isn't she?Ian: She is. Melanie is a very pretty girl. Even beautiful. But pretty as she is, she is a stranger to me. She's not the one I... care about.Wanderer: It's this body.Ian: That's not true at all. It's not the face, but the expressions on it. It's not the voice, but what they say. It's not how you look like in that body, it's what you do with it. You are beautiful.”

“It doesn't make you a monster to want, she said, her voice very gentle. It's what you do with it that matters.”

“…that would be too much like running away, and that, she would not do. She does not run—they cannot make her—she walks.”

“You give too much attention to things that make you unhappy,' Allison says. No doubt she is right. And yet attending to things that make Hannah unhappy--it's such a natural reflex. It feels so intrinsic, it feels in some ways like who she is. The unflattering observations she makes about other people, the comments that get her in trouble, aren't these truer than small talk and thank-you notes? Worse, but truer. And underneath all the decorum, isn't most everyone judgmental and disappointed? Or is it only certain people, and can she choose not to be one of them--can she choose this without also, like her mother, just giving in?”

“Gallimard: It's... a pure sacrifice. He's unworthy, but what can she do? She loves him... so much. It's a very beautiful story.Song: Well, yes, to a Westerner.Gallimard: Exuse me?Song: It's one of your favotite fantasies, isn't it? The submissive Oriental woman and the cruel white man.”