“Perhaps I will die too, she told herself, and the thought did not seem so terrible to her. If she flung herself from the window, she could put an end to her suffering, and in the years to come the singers would write songs of her grief. Her body would lie on the stones below, broken and innocent, shaming all those who had betrayed her. Sansa went so far as to cross the bedchamber and throw open the shutters ... but then her courage left her, and she ran back to her bed, sobbing.”

“And it was no shame to her that she so dreamed. It was no shame that she called before her, one by one, those who had asked her to cross with them the threshold (of marriage) and those who might still ask her. It was no shame that, while her heart said always, "no," she still waited - waited for one whom she knew not, but only knew that she would know him when he came. And it was no shame to her that, even while this was so, she saw herself in the years to come a wife and mother. ”

“Right now the nightmares were in her waking hours so she needed to stay asleep. She was broken. Shattered. Devastated. Crushed. There was nothing left of the woman she had been. She could see it in her eyes. When she was awake she had to acknowledge her brokenness. She had to admit to herself that she might never be fixed. It was too much to think about. Her boy had to come back and, until he did, she needed to stay in her dreams.”

“There was a warmth of fury in his last phrases. He meant she loved him more than he her. Perhaps he could not love her. Perhaps she had not in herself that which he wanted. It was the deepest motive of her soul, this self-mistrust. It was so deep she dared neither realise nor acknowledge. Perhaps she was deficient. Like an infinitely subtle shame, it kept her always back. If it were so, she would do without him. She would never let herself want him. She would merely see.”

“I would move the earth to save your mother. D'ye hear me, Sarah? I would tear down the walls of her jail and carry her to the wilds of Maine, but it is not what she wants. She will throw herself at her judges because she believes that her innocence will show through all the lies and deceptions...She humbles me with her strength.”

“He seemed so terribly weak. She would have had more respect for him if he'd told her to go fuck herself.' I have to go to sleep' she'd scathe.Then she'd roll over, and so would he. They'd be lying there like two strangers who just happened to be sharing the same bed. It was in those moments she began to plot her escape.”