“I asked for so little!” she kept saying, as though her diminished demands alone should have protected her against any disappointments. But I think she was mistaken; she had actually asked for a lot. She had dared to ask for happiness, and she had dared to expect that happiness out of her marriage. You can’t possibly ask for more than that.”

“Her own fearless audacity had surprised her, though she knew she had been born for more than her life had asked of her thus far.”

“-Lara is a weasel. I've always hated her. The only happy week I had as a child was when she fell from the roof and went into a coma. She came out of it, though. Everyone was so happy.-Is that true? asked James.-No, said Grieve. But they would have been happy. Everyone thinks she's so clever. And I would be happy if she went away and never came back.”

“Before her marriage she had thought that she had love within her grasp; but since the happiness which she had expected this love to bring her hadn’t come, she supposed she must have been mistaken. And Emma tried to imagine just what was meant, in life, by the words “bliss,” “passion,” and “rapture” - words that had seemed so beautiful to her in books.”

“She sipped from her bottle. “Okay. Truth or dare.”“Dare.”Okay, she hadn’t expected that. She’d been prepared to ask some lame question that she probably already knew the answer to. Now she had to think of a dare.The driving pulse of music gave her an idea.“Dance with me,” she blurted.He lifted his eyebrows. “That’s your dare?”“Not challenging enough?”He shook his head. “Not nearly.”“You haven’t seen me dance.”

“When the only answer a little girl ever receives is no, from her parents or her teachers or her world, at some point she stops asking for what she wants. She begins to expect nothing, so as not to be disappointed when that exactly what she gets. But, it turns out, I do have wants.”