“London was so rich, and also so green, and somehow so detailed: full of stuff that had been made, and bought, and placed, and groomed, and shaped, and washed clean, and put on display as if the whole city was for sale.”

“We’d learned in school that the city of London, England, is the largest city in the whole wide world. Maybe so. But it couldn’t have been much bigger than Rutland.”

“The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in public.”

“It must have been the scarcity of detail in that tawny landscape that made detail so precious.”

“Having once been so high, humanity fell so low. What had once been dedicated to the soul was now dedicated to the sale.”

“So this was different. I was amazing now - to them and to myself. It was like I had been born to be a vampire. The idea made me want to laugh, but it also made me want to sing. I had found my true place in the world, the place I fit, the place I shined.”