“Luca saw her bloodstained hands as the clerk bound them with a rope, and Luca realized that she was a thing of horror, a beautiful thing of horror, the worst thing between heaven and hell: a fallen angel.”

“The truth is the last thing that matters,' she said. 'And you can believe one thing of the truth and me: I keep it well hidden, inside my heart.”

“It is no small thing, this, for a woman: freedom.”

“Do you really think that God in his heaven with all the angels, there from the beginning of time and looking towards the day of judgement day, really looks down on all the world and see's you and little harry and says 'whatever you choose to do is my will?' "Yes i do." she says uncertainly.”

“A woman has to change her nature if she is to be a wife. She has to learn to curb her tongue, to suppress her desires, to moderate her thoughts and to spend her days putting another first. She has to put him first even when she longs to serve herself or her children. She has to put him first even if she longs to judge for herself. She has to put him first even when she knows best. To be a good wife is to be a woman with a will of iron that you yourself have forged into a bridle to curb your own abilities. To be a good wife is to enslave yourself to a lesser person. To be a good wife is to amputate your own power as surely as the parents of beggars hack off their children's feet for the greater benefit of the family.”

“I would play ball with Catherine, and hide and seek: Not a very challenging game in an open meadow, but she was still at the age where she believed that if she shut her eyes and buried her head under a shawl then she could not be seen.”

“He promised her that he would give her everything, everything she wanted, as men in love always do. And she trusted him despite herself, as women in love always do.”