“...and in the deep, dreaming hours I am easily moved by the stories of the real men and women who have lived out their passions on a scale so much greater than my own. It is at night, with a book open and these noble ghosts rising from the page, that I believe most strongly in the grandeur of life and feel most alone.”

“So I just live with my insomnia. I do crossword puzzles, or wander out to the music room and fool around on the piano, or read. Those late hours when the world is completely still, when the only sound is the rustle of the air in the vents and the wind visiting the trees outside, when the darkness is tucked tight around the house and you feel as life itself the movements of your own consciousness-these are wonderful hours to read. There is no interruption.”

“I knew that somehow this loneliness was linked to all my other fears and worries and premonitions and to my sense, that fall, of the terrible fragility of everything around me.”

“Kat and Will must have been quietly plotting their escape for years, and I'd been so intent on making sure that their homework was done and their desks were tidy and their shoelaces tied that I'd missed all the signs.”

“I told you, you're my black pearl. When i first set eyes on you in the servant's hall I thought you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life.”

“Men marry women who see through their bullshit, and women marry men they can't seduce, at least according to Lou. It's the only way you can live with each other over long periods of time and get things done, raising kids and buying houses and all the other nonsense of matrimony and human striving. To Judith, this was a depressing thought. She wanted to marry a man who was so crazy for her he couldn't see straight.”

“...when I see you here amidst all this, I realise that I proposed to a very small part of you. I thought I was giving you a home and a position, but here I see that I am taking you away from so much.”