“...no matter how much Theo achieves and acquires and out-dazzles everyone else, she never seems content. She's taught you that people who shine more lavishly that everyone else seem to be penalized by discontent, as if they're being punished for craving a brighter life. I've been knocked down so many times I can't remember the number plates, she said once.”

“Seemed like no matter how much money people had, they were desperate to have more, desperate to look good compared to everyone else. Why bother to impress when all anyone else cared about was how impressive THEY were?”

“She taught me to revel. She taught me to wonder. She taught me to laugh.My sense of humor had always measured up to everyone else's; but timidintroverted me, I showed it sparingly: I was a smiler. In her presence Ithrew back my head and laughed out loud for the first time in my life”

“It's incredible," she says, "how much damage everyone does to everybody else.”

“You have to decide who you are, little girl, she told me once. Once you know that, everyone else will too.”

“It's up to brave hearts, sir, to be patient when things are going badly, as well as being happy when they're going well ... For I've heard that what they call fortune is a flighty woman who drinks too much, and, what's more, she's blind, so she can't see what she's doing, and she doesn't know who she's knocking over or who she's raising up.”