“Well, he wouldn't get fooled again. He wouldn't give anybody the chance. Quentin felt a new attitude of detachment descend on him. His molten anger and grief were cooling into a glossy protective coating, a hard transparent lacquer of uncaring. He felt how infinitely safer and more sound this attitude was. The trick was just not wanting anything. That was power. That was courage: the courage not to love anyone or hope for anything.”

“He is totally abandoned in the way he buys book after book, never to read a single one. I wouldn't mind if he used his head and bought in moderation, but no. Whenever the mood takes him, he ambles off to the biggest bookshop in the city and brings back home as many books as chance to catch his fancy. Then, at the end of the month, he adopts an attitude of complete detachment.”

“I know my husband. He died with God's name on his lips if anybody's. He always loved his work more than me." (Kate) "Then he was a fool," the captain said with such bitterness that she felt sorry for him, too. "No. He was not a fool," she said. "And he loved me. I know he did. He just belonged to God. I only borrowed him for a time." (p.383)”

“He felt his heart, which no longer beat, contract, and he wondered if there was anything in the world as painful as not being able to protect the people you loved.”

“How could he possibly understand just how much she had to give and how desperately she wanted to give it to him, and him alone? He, who had the weight of the world on his shoulders, but bore it with this capable strength. He, who stood alone at the top, silent and courageous in his dedication to the legacy he had inherited. And lastly, he, who so clearly needed someone, anyone, to understand him.”

“...he had found the courage once in his life to seize a chance at love from a person who knew how to give it. Lena prayed on these two moons that she would find that same courage.”