“I begin to think,' said Estella, in a musing way, after another moment of calm wonder, 'that I almost understand how this comes about. If you had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as the daylight by which she has never once seen your face―if you had done that, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to understand the daylight and know all about it, you would have been disappointed and angry? . . .'Or,' said Estella, '―which is a nearer case―if you had taught her, from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and might, that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was made to be her enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against it, for it had blighted you and would else blight her―if you had done this, and then, for a purpose, had wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she could not do it, you would have been disappointed and angry? . . .'So,' said Estella, 'I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.”

“You must know,’ said Estella, condescending to me as a beautiful and brilliant woman might, ‘that I have no heart—if that has anything to do with my memory.’ I got through some jargon to the effect that I took the liberty of doubting that. That I knew better. That there could be no such beauty without it. ‘Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt,’ said Estella, ‘and, of course, if it ceased to beat I should cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, no—sympathy—sentiment—nonsense.’ … ‘I am serious,’ said Estella, not so much with a frown (for her brow was smooth) as with a darkening of her face; ‘If we are to be thrown much together, you had better believe it at once. No!’ imperiously stopping me as I opened my lips. ‘I have not bestowed my tenderness anywhere. I have never had any such thing.”

“He shoved his hips against her, reminding her of what they had just done, and said, “I had never bedded a woman before you. I made that plain. Did you think I let you seduce me lightly? No, I did not. You made a deal with me the moment you gave me entry into your body.”“I made no such deal!” Her eyes were angry—and frightened—but he would not let her make him back down.“Precious Isabel,” he whispered. “You made a deal with your heart, your soul, and your body, and you sealed it with the wash of your climax on my c*ck.”She blinked, looking dazed. He’d never used such words before, especially not with her, but their bluntness was necessary.”

“What do you think it would have been like if Valentine had brought you up along with me? Would you have loved me?"Clary was very glad she had put her cup down, because if she hadn't, she would have dropped it.Sebastian was looking at her not with any shyness or the sort of natural awkwardness that might be attendant on such a bizarre question, but as if she were a curious, foreign life-form."Well," she said. "You're my brother. I would have loved you. I would have...had to.”

“I love my mother for all the times she said absolutely nothing.... Thinking back on it all, it must have been the most difficult part of mothering she ever had to do: knowing the outcome, yet feeling she had no right to keep me from charting my own path. I thank her for all her virtues, but mostly for never once having said, "I told you so.”

“I could tell that Mom was dreaming, but I didn't want to know what she was dreaming about, because I had enough of my own nightmares, and if she had been dreaming something happy, I would have been angry at her for dreaming something happy.”