“...they did not come down hard on Leone because she had murdered her lover. It was because her sister was a nun.”

“Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.”

“We knew that Cecilia had killed herself because she was a misfit, because the beyond called to her, and we knew that her sisters, once abandoned, felt her calling from that place, too. ”

“Hereafter she is only my sister in name; not because I disown her, but because she has disowned me.”

“Were you her lover? Did she cheat on you?” He paused. Rhoswen glared at him but remained silent. He said, “I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that’s a no. Did she really have to get rid of her servant just because I came along? Wait, here it comes again: no.”

“Because of course she had known she must go. She always did the thing because in obedience lay the integrity that God asked of her. If anyone had asked her what she meant by integrity she would not have been able to tell them but she had seen it once like a picture in her mind, a root going down into the earth and drinking deeply there. No one was really alive without that root.”