“No matter what form the relationship might take, he was the only person she could picture sharing her life with.”

“I can't imagine finding anybody to take your place.""You might not find a person that easily, but you could probably find a way without too much trouble," Aomama noted.The dowager looked at Aomame calmly, her lips forming a satisfied smile. "That may be true," she said, "but I almost surely could never find anthing to take the place of what we are sharing here and now. You are you and only you. I'm very grateful for that. More grateful than I can say.”

“... she suddenly looks different to Olympia, physically different, as though a portrait has been alterred. And Olympia thinks that possibly such adjustments might have to be made for everyone she knows. Upon meeting a person, a sketch is formed, and for the life of the relationship, however intimate or not, a portrait is painted, with oils or pastels or with black ink or with watercolor, and only at a persons's death can the portraits be considered finished. Perhaps not even at the person's death.”

“In any perfect relationship men should remember it's a matter of direction; she takes what's right and you take what's left.”

“Data doesn’t matter. Only opinions and stories formed from the data matters and gets shared and absorbed.”

“Her education only made her unhappy thinking about it - that no matter how much she changed her life, she could not change the world that surrounded her.”