“I'd been willing to kill for the people I loved for a very long time; now I had to start living for them.”

“And I saw that all my life I had known that this was going to happen, and that I'd been afraid for a long time, I'd been afraid for a long time. There's fear, of course, with everybody. But now it had grown, it had grown gigantic; it filled me and it filled the whole world.”

“The people who have adored me-- there have not been very many, but there have been some-- have always insisted on living on, long after I had ceased to care for them, or they to care for me.”

“Right now, I had everything I could ask for. It wasn't a long list, but it was a very satisfying one, starting with the love of my life back in my arms.”

“I asked myself if I would kill my parents to save his life, a question I had been posing since I was fifteen. The answer always used to be yes. But in time, all those boys had faded away, and my parents were still there. I was now less and less willing to kill them for anyone; in fact, I worried for their health. In this case, however, I had to say yes. Yes, I would.”

“People do look different when you fall out of love with them. But then again, I wasn't sure if it had ever been love I'd felt for her, or for anyone in fact.”