“She smiled at and spoke to each person. It was as though she couldn't come into contact with anyone or anything without imparting some of her goodness onto them.”

“She wanted more. More of him. More of this and them...she wanted to see him come apart above her and know that they had done this together. She wanted to find their own beautiful rhythm. The music swirled and rose about them, a tempting pace she was eager to match.She smiled, and he felt her smile travel all the way to his heart, allaying his worries. Without breaking eye contact, he began to move in and out maddeningly slowly.”

“She couldn't save them, she couldn't save anyone but herself, which made her presence here the worst sort of self-indulgence, her mission a long-running fantasy.”

“Somehow, some way, she had to be alive. A world without her carefree laughter didn't seem worth living in. A world that couldn't see her lovely smile wasn't worth saving.”

“I couldn't for the life of me figure out how long a person had to live, or how good she had to be, to get her hands on some treasure.”

“Why then did she do it? She looked at the canvas, lightly scored with running lines. It would be hung in the servants' bedrooms. It would be rolled up and stuffed under a sofa. What was the good of doing it then, and she heard some voice saying she couldn't paint, saying she couldn't create, as if she were caught up in one of those habitual currents in which after a certain time experience forms in the mind, so that one repeats words without being aware any longer who originally spoke them.”