“So this is where the years of maturity deliver us - to this needy, selfish, unwieldy wish to be somebody else's first and primal other.”

“But I’m not calm. It’s all a lie.” Quinn held Katie closer, breathing faster. “It’s just that when everybody else is screaming, somebody has to be mature and unemotional, so I have these brain-dead moments where I don’t react the way any sane human being would. I stay completely calm and ignore my feelings and compromise and make everything work again. And I’m not going to do that anymore. From now on, I’m going to be Zoe. Screw calm. Somebody else is going to have to do mature because I’m going to be selfish and get what I want.”

“Not for the first time, I wished both of us could just say what we meant. But that, like so much else, was impossible”

“Seek to share joy with others, or to make somebody else happy, and you will find your own soul radiant with the joy you wished for another.”

“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”

“Some legislators only wish to vengeance against a particular enemy. Others only look out for themselves. They devote very little time on the consideration of any public issue. They think that no harm will come from their neglect. They act as if it is always the business of somebody else to look after this or that. When this selfish notion is entertained by all, the commonwealth slowly begins to decay. ”