“She looked like something that might have occured to Ibsen in one of his less frivolous moments.”

“It didn't occur to him that she might have chosen to remain this way. That where he saw reserve and loneliness, Cassandra saw self-preservation and the knowledge that it was safer when one had less to lose.”

“Here's something that might not occur to you: If a state trooper sees a weird, patchwork Toyota Echo hurtling down 1-95, and it looks like half of a small country is immigrating to the States in this one little car, you might get stopped.”

“That I might never have an occasion to wear such a thing or that I might look like the worst sort of Republican doing so probably never occurred to her. ”

“Life's most beautiful and inspiring moments occur at 3am, just prowling, looking for nothing but always finding something.”

“She has known some happiness there, a privileged moment of revelation, a glimpse into an unexplored part of herself, into something beyond herself. But she is also suspicious of such moment; they do not last, and one never knows where and when they might recur, like islands of an uncharted archipelago. p 108”