“The surface of the shoes seemed to pulse with hundreds of reflections and refractions. In the firelight, it was like looking at boiling corpuscles of blood under a magnifying glass.”

“Her sister's shoes. They sparkeled even in the darkening afternoon. They sparkeled like yellow diamonds, and embers of blood and thorny stars.”

“In summer moonlight, she was dangerously, inebriatingly magnified. ”

“To look into the mirror is to see the future, in blood and rubies.”

“How she wanted to put away adult things and go back to seeing through a looking-glass, darkly.”

“You always had an eye for the fellow with a decent helping of sausage and hard-boiled eggs.”

“Galinda didn't see the verdant world through the glass of the carriage; she saw her own reflection instead. She had the nearsightedness of youth. She reasoned that because she was beautiful she was significant, though what she signified, and to whom, was not clear yet...She was, after all, on her way to Shiz because she was smart. But there was more than one way to be smart.”