“Others dreamed of finding a person in the world whose soul was made in their mirror image, but Almondine and Edgar had been conceived nearly together, grown up together, and however strange it might be, she was his other. Much could be endured for that.”

“How could they say that they truly loved each other? They had simply grown up together, been children together, and the proximity of it, the closeness of it, had produced in them love s illusion. And yet--on the other hand--what was love if it wasn't this instinct she felt...”

“The old poems said that lovers were made for each other. But that wasn't true for Kai and Elliot. They hadn't been made for each other at all—quite the opposite. But they'd grown together, the two of them, until they were like two trees from a single trunk, stronger together than either could have been alone.”

“But there was one other thing that the grown-ups also knew, and it was this: that however small the chance might be of striking lucky, the chance is there. The chance had to be there.”

“Maybe if she had known some other way to try, she might have made his face different. But what the other way could be, she had no idea.”

“The world was made up of people putting one foot in front of the other; and a life might appear ordinary simply because the person living it had been doing so for a long time.”