“How did you do it?" he wanted to know. "Enchanted arrows? Spell of exploding flesh? Rain of fire? No, not that. The worm would be cooked and we would be eating it. Wand of destruction? Oh, a wand of destruction would be a find, fine thing." He turned to me. "Speak up, girl." I hit him with your skillet. A lot.”

“Girls were born knowing how destructive the truth could be. They learned to hold it in, tamp it down, like gunpowder in an old fashioned gun. Then it exploded in your face on a November day in the rain.”

“He didn't want her; he wanted me. Well, you know how it is."Dalgliesh did know. This, after all, was the commonest, the most banal of personal tragedies. You loved someone. They didn't love you. Worse still, in defiance of their own best interests and to the destruction of your peace, they loved another. What would half the world's poets and novelists do without this universal tragicomedy?”

“We tried so hard. We were always trying to help each other. But not because we were helpless. He needed to get things for me, just as I needed to get things for him. It gave us purpose. Sometimes I would ask him for something that I did not even want, just to let him get it for me. We spent our days trying to help each other help each other. I would get his slippers. He would make my tea. I would turn up the heat so he could turn up the air conditioner so I could turn up the heat.”

“It was time to bring out the world destructive weapons. It was now time to hit him where it would do the biggest damage, his pride.”

“Ah!" thought Rodolphe, turning very pale, "that was what she came for." At last he said with a calm air— "Dear madame, I have not got them." He did not lie. If he had had them, he would, no doubt, have given them, although it is generally disagreeable to do such fine things: a demand for money being, of all the winds that blow upon love, the coldest and most destructive.”