“Maybe she was enjoying a moment in her life, a sliver of light, a flash memory of one of her kids, something sweet and approaching reality.”

“Maybe that was why she was helping Madeleine. She was a manipulative bitch, but Dess couldn't imagine living in any other reality than the one those manipulations had created. In a way, Dess owed the old mindcaster something. Like her life, such as it was.”

“Back to him she would never go, but in her lonely life still lived the sweet memory of that happy time when she believed in him and he was all in all to her.”

“One of pleasures of parenting, future reader: parent can positively influence kid, make moment kid will remember for rest of life, moment that alters his/her trajectory, opens up his/her heart + mind.”

“The girl's life had been squandered in the streets, and among the most noisome of the stews and dens of London, but there was something of the woman's original nature left in her still; and when she heard a light step approaching the door opposite to that by which she had entered, and thought of the wide contrast which the small room would in another moment contain, she felt burdened with the sense of her own deep shame: and shrunk as though she could scarcely bear the presence of her with whom she had sought this interview.”

“But most of all, when Somer closes her eyes, she imagines the moment she will hold her baby for the first time. She keeps Asha’s photo in her pocket and looks at it often. That one photo vaporized her doubts and made everything come to life. She lay awake at night, picturing her daughter’s sweet face.”