“Neither of the two people in the room paid any attention to the way I came in, although only one of them was dead.”

“My sounds [crying] were small and muffled but obvious. No one paid any attention. It was the way we had become. In a world full of sorrows, this was only one more.”

“How was it that Adrian Ivashkov, who never seemed to take anything seriously was the only one among these "responsible" people who paid attention to such small details? How was he the only one to really understand the magnitude of what I was feeling?”

“Only two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.”

“Objects exist and if one pays more attention to them than to people, it is precisely because they exist more than the people. Dead objects are still alive. Living people are often already dead.”

“... although I knew what issues had been most difficult for me in my life, I may not have known the depth of the feeling I had about them. ... When those stories, with their feelings, returned ... I paid attention to them. What I tell people now it, 'Try to keep your mind hospitable. This needs to visit for a while. Don't be afraid.' [p. 122]”