“Interesting she called him. She saw him as interesting-artistically. Under the circumstances, that was about as unflattering as she could get.”

“But how could she tell him that the reason she always acted so disinterested in everything was because of the worry that she herself wasn't all that interesting?”

“We talked, she and I. She asked about my work and it was a pretense, she was not interested in my work. And when I answered, it was a pretense. I was not interested in my work either. There was only one thing that interested us, and she knew it. She had made it plain by her coming.”

“She thought that heartbreak might just give his character the shadows and corners and angles it needed to make it truly interesting. To deepen and shape it. She was sorry she would be the one to help make him truly interesting. But she’d never apologize for falling in love with a man who already was.”

“He smiled. He liked to imagine that she saw the beauty, that she could think outside the well-worn tracks of her countrymen, find something to like about this unsophisticated place. Because that just might mean she could find something to like about him.”

“Philippa, enviously, wished she could do the same, and then decided she would rather be interesting and sensitive.”