“Even in her trances, even while possessed, my sister was very shrewd about her prospects. A fantasy would collapse like a wave against the rocks of her intelligence. Madness, as I understood it from books, meant a person who was open to the high white whine of everything.”

“Archer was too intelligent to think that a young woman like Ellen Olenska would necessarily recoil from everything that reminded her of her past. She might believe herself wholly in revolt against it; but what had charmed her in it would still charm her even though it were against her will.”

“Strat yearned to imagine her without even the thin white dress, but it would not be honorable, so he prevented himself from having such a fantasy.”

“Light like thin grey soup seeped through the windows. The door opened and Mrs. Dark came in, followed by her sister, who had no head, only the white bone of her spine protruding from her raggedly severed neck.”

“I should like to write my books only for the dear person who lies awake reading in bed until page last, then lets the open book fall gently on her face, to touch her smile or drink her tears.”

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”