“It seemed there was no end at all to the lies a person could tell, once she got started.”

“So something had begun, and now she could not stop it. Twin threads ran through her: fear and excitement. She could leave this place today. She could start a new life somewhere else.”

“It wasn't right. He knew that, but it was like falling: once you started you couldn't stop until something stopped you.”

“This was her life. Not the life she had once dreamed of, not a life her younger self would ever have imagined or desired, but the life she was living, with all its complexities. This was her life, built with care and attention, and it was good.”

“Photography is all about secrets. The secrets we all have and will never tell.”

“Why did she [Madame Curie] seek to tame this mystery, which in the hands of others turned a multitude to ashes? Her work exploded with the violence of a thousand suns, but I must tell her that it was not her fault, the way they twisted her creation, tampered with her dreams."I will tell her."They said she was inhuman, heartless, but it is not so. She is here now. Weeping, she awaits me, She is carrying balm for our hands. [p, 56]”

“...Caroline said easily, amazed all over again at this sudden facility she'd developed, the fluidity and ease of her lies.”