“She couldn't imagine why there was such a difference between those children and her. She couldn't imagine why she and all these other people with her had to be treated this way. Who decided this, and what for?”

“Maybe that was why she was helping Madeleine. She was a manipulative bitch, but Dess couldn't imagine living in any other reality than the one those manipulations had created. In a way, Dess owed the old mindcaster something. Like her life, such as it was.”

“I couldn't tell you why she felt that way but she felt it everyday. I couldn't help her; I just watched her make the same mistakes again.”

“What she couldn't put into word was what had happened in between to change her from one person into the other”

“She was too dependent on what other people thought of her, and that was her downfall. She cared too much. She was only what other people saw in her—-that is, what she imagined they saw in her.”

“She couldn't imagine ever having sex with Kevin again. The very idea repulsed her.”