“I mean, it's impossible to fake anything if you've already seen the other person in a way they'd never choose for you to. You can't go back from that.”

“Once you've been backstage at a theater, the theater is never the same for you. Once you've noticed the crack in the vase, the vase is never the same for. Once you've seen a friend do something appalling, the friendship is never the same. That does not mean you won't go to the theater, or keep the vase or the friend. You can choose.”

“But isn't that what love is, Clarissa? Ownership? 'I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine,' as the Song of Songs goes.""No. And don't quote the Bible at me. I don't think you get it...It's not just that someone belongs to you, it's that you give yourself to them. I doubt you've ever given anything to anyone. Except maybe nightmares.""To give yourself to someone?" The thin smile didn't waver. "As you've given yourself to Jonathan?" "What?""You think I haven't seen the way you two look at each other? The way he says your name? You may not think I can feel, but that doesn't mean I can't see feelings in others.”

“I know one thing for certain; it is much harder to tell whether you are lost than whether you were lost, for, on many occasions, where you are going is exactly where you are. On the other hand, if you often find that where you've been is not at all where you should have gone, and, since it's much more difficult to find your way back from someplace you've never left, I suggest you go there immediately and then decide.”

“Sometimes you don't realize you've crossed a line until you're on the other side and can't go back.”

“You have to be with other people, he thought. In order to live at all. I mean before they came here I could stand it... But now it has changed. You can't go back, he thought. You can't go from people to nonpeople." - J.R. Isidore”