“He crowned her with roses, girded her with verbena, in the costume of an amorous holocaust.”

“There is an admirable fact about the psychology of France: she knows no half measures, loathsome or sublime, she forges the thought and the beauty of a world or of a dung heap; her destiny is never to be mediocre.”

“Covering oneself, surrounding oneself with shapes and colors that correspond to a plan, mean that that plan is beginning to be realized.”

“Those very superficial sensualists and profligates who lead the dance of Latin decadence have not seen, among their dancing girls and their pennies, that the disappearance of symbols was a precursor to the ruin of a people; communities only have abstract reasons for existing...”

“The absence of symbols in our life debases it as much as any government can...”

“The costume is great," I said to Lysander, "but a crown? Really?"He glared at me, his black wings beating. I'd only been in his shop for thirty minutes, but I was pretty sure the guy already hated me. "It was my understanding that you were to go dressed as the goddess of witchcraft, and Hecate wears a crown.""It's not really a crown, Soph," Jenna offered from her spot on a nearby white satin settee. "It's more like a tiara." She had her chin in her hand, and there was practically a little black rain cloud over her head. We had taken Vix to the airport, so Jenna was Sulky McSulkerton.”

“A lady's hair is her crowning glory”