“Thoughts are strange creatures. They lead you from one thing to another. Sometimes you don’t know how you got from one to the next.”

“The handkerchief dabbed at my forehead. 'Ouch! You'll have a fine-looking bruise tomorrow.''Then you'll be able to distinguish me from Rose.'The handkerchief paused. 'I could tell you apart from the beginning. You're quite different to each other, you know.'Perhaps he could tell, in the obvious ways. The odd one was Rose; the other odd one was Briony.”

“It's one thing to keep secrets. It's quite another to lie.”

“I don’t mind the disapproving ones so much. It’s the tolerant ones I can’t stand, the ones who smile at Rose, who speak to her ever so slowly and gently. They don’t realize how very intelligent Rose really is. They’re just terrifically pleased with themselves. Look at me! they all but shout. See how broad-minded I am! How wonderfully progressive, how fantastically twentieth century!”

“I think about the Old Ones, that they have a past but no history. I think about the inevitability of death, and whether it’s not that very inevitability that inspires us to take photographs and make scrapbooks and tell stories. That that’s how we humans find our way to immortality. This is not a new thought; I’ve had such thoughts before. But I have a new thought now. That that’s how we find our way toward meaning. Meaning. If you’re going to die, you want to find meaning in life. You want to connect the dots.”

“Smash the table, why don’t you? Kick things about. It’s ever so nice to see you embrace the true spirit of the Fraternitus.”

“It’s one thing if a person learns you’re a witch. It’s quite another if he learns you’re a murderer. I almost forget I’m a witch now that I know I’m a murderer—murderess, actually. Murderess sounds so much worse.”