“She'd never imagined it like this-when she thought of someone (a woman like herself)losing her mind, she'd imagined shrieks and wails, hallucinations; but at that moment it had seemed clear that there was another way, far quieter; a way that was numb and hopeless, flat, so much so that an emotion as strong as sorrow would have been a relief.”

“He seemed so terribly weak. She would have had more respect for him if he'd told her to go fuck herself.' I have to go to sleep' she'd scathe.Then she'd roll over, and so would he. They'd be lying there like two strangers who just happened to be sharing the same bed. It was in those moments she began to plot her escape.”

“It was foolish to feel like a girl getting ready for a date. Gennie told herself that as she unlocked the door to the cottage.She'd told herself the same thing as she'd driven away from town...as she'd turned down the quiet lane.It was a spur of the moment cookout-two adults,a steak,and a bottle of burgundy that may or may not have been worth the price. A person would have to look hard to find any romance in charcoal, lighter fluid and some freshly picked greens from a patch in the backyard. Not for the first time, Gennie thought it a pity her imagination was so expansive.It had undoubtedly been imagination that had brought on that rush of feeling in the churhcyard. A little unexpected tenderness, a soft breeze and she heard bells. Silly. Gennie set the bags on the kitchen counter and wished she'd bought candles. Candlelight would make even that tidy,practical little kitchen seem romantic.And if she had a radio, there could be music...”

“Something was wrong. She'd failed, Phoebe thought, but at what? Imagining herself in Europe, she'd always pictured someone else, physically even, a tall blonde with an answer for everything - as if, in the course of this journey, she would not only shed her former life but cease to exist as herself. Yes, she thought, to leave Phoebe O'Connor behind and be reborn as someone beautiful, mysterious. But the opposite had happened; her own narrow boundaries had hemmed her in, keeping everything real at a distance.”

“She had made the choice for him - in a moment of flight and panic, but she had made it - not realizing that her Jace would rather die than be like this, and that she'd been not so much saving his life as damning him to an existence he would despise.”

“Sumire was a hopeless romantic, a bit set in her ways - innocent of the ways of the world, to put a nice spin on it. Start her talking and she'd go on nonstop, but if she was with someone she didn't get along with - most people in the world, in other words - she barely opened her mouth. She smoked too much, and you could count on her to lose her ticket every time she took the train. She'd get so engrossed in her thoughts at times she'd forget to eat, and she was as thin as one of those war orphans in an old Italian film - like a stick with eyes. I'd love to show you a photo of her but I don't have any. She hated having her photograph taken - no desire to leave behind for posterity a Portrait of the Artist as a Young (Wo)Man.”