“The publicity image steals her love of herself as she is, and offers it back to her for the price of the product.”

“She had grown older. And he loved her more now than he had loved her when he understood her better, when she was the product of her parents. What she was now was what she herself had decided to become.”

“She couldn't steal herself back from Randa only to give herself away again - belong to another person, be answerable to another person, build her very being around another person.”

“I want to create a 3-4 deal—buy three for the price of four. Offer valid for any product but love, which is one for the price of two only.”

“She didn't have to be offered anything; it was already hers. She was more herself than anyone else ever was and as soon as I clapped eyes on her I knew I wanted to be myself just as much as she was herself.”

“The absurdity of it, she thought, this quest for the love of a man who was her equal. She loathed herself for it. She thought of her life (and herself) as a missed opportunity. Somewhere, back there, she had missed something. What was it? When was it? The worse horror beneath: that she hadn't missed anything, that her life was merely the sum of her choices and that her choices had led her to this: another truncated encounter; the carcinogenic belief in the idea of a Great Love; clammy sex; loneliness in the small hours.”