“I'm sure that's when you really know you are happy - when you wake up wanting to embrace your future, rather than trying to squirm away from your past.”

“That's the one good thing about the human brain, it constantly revises the past, cutting bits here, adding bits there, presenting it in an even more palatable way - the way we would have liked things to have been, rather than the way they really are.”

“I want to take away your sunshine, Lukas. Not because I'm evil but because the sun can't exist without shadows. I want to examine the lie that keeps you afloat--the idea that it's wonderful to be Lukas, that it's splendid to be the tsar's favorite dwarf, that there's nothing better to do than bring crackers to Menshikov like some kind of dog. When does it hurt the most, Lukas? That's what I'd like to know. What hurts you more than anything else? Is it when the tsar mocks you? Or is it when he can't remember your name? Is it when he forgets all about your for a year or two? When are you going to curse Peter Alexeyevich to Hell, Lukas? That's what I'd like to know. I want to get behind that smile of yours, and your clown's heart. And then I'll console you when you fall apart--I'll console you when you realize that you are infinitely unloved. At that moment I'll be at your side, but no before. Not a moment before.”

“All men lie. That's how they operate. if you want a longterm relationship with a man you've got to understand it's going to be with a liar. It's in their nature - it's genetic, it's a bloody Darwinian acquired characteristic for survival, OK? They tell you what they want you to hear.”

“If you don't go to bed at night with your bones aching from wanting it, you don't really want it. When your bones ache from wanting something, nothing and nobody will stop you getting it.”

“You're so young... Are you sure that's what you want your life to be, forever and ever? That job? That career? That girlfriend?”

“The past always seems better when you look back on it than it did at the time. And the present never looks as good as it will in the future.”