“All the girls feared their Father less than they did their Mother, because she sometimes remembered things and he did not. Lord Brightlingsea was swept through life on a steady amnesiac flow.”

“She did not know why the heat felt so heavy in that house, why all of a sudden it felt so much less like warmth than she remembered.”

“But he remembered that even if she did box his ears, he musn't box hers again, for she was a girl, and all that boys must do, if girls are rude, is to go away and leave them.”

“Semille wept not because she did something stupid; she wept because she *didn't* do something stupid. Sometimes, to do something stupid--to disobey your parents, to rush into battle, to speak out of turn, to ruin your life--is a far better thing to do than to do nothing at all.”

“What cracks had he left in their hearts? Did they love less now and settle for less in return, as they held onto parts of themselves they did not want to give and lose again? Or - and he wished this - did they love more fully because they had survived pain, so no longer feared it?”

“Yet even in such moments she didn’t doubt that God existed. She just sometimes wondered if He remembered that she did.”