“Strat yearned to imagine her without even the thin white dress, but it would not be honorable, so he prevented himself from having such a fantasy.”

“She wasn't fantasy anymore. But something real, something he couldn't imagine living without, and he crossed his arms, as if bracing himself from the possibility that all this might slip away.”

“I groaned. Man and his codes! Even in a lawless inferno, man has to give himself some honor, he's so desperate to separate himself from the beasts.”

“He always ran away from the battle with himself. Even in his own heart's privacy, he excused himself, saying, "If she hadn't said so-and-so, it would never have happened.”

“Do you have a little white dress? I've had this deep-seated nurse fantasy about you, Murphy.”

“Even in her trances, even while possessed, my sister was very shrewd about her prospects. A fantasy would collapse like a wave against the rocks of her intelligence. Madness, as I understood it from books, meant a person who was open to the high white whine of everything.”