“I had a gift too; not the bright and shining coin that was Christopher's. It was my way to turn over all that glittered and look for the tarnish.”

“I've always thought about the theatre like a Christmas tree, all shining and bright with beautiful ornaments. But now it seems like a Christmas tree with the tinsel all tarnished and the colored balls all fallen off and broken...'Sure, I know what you mean...And it's both ways...Some of the ornaments fall and break and some stay clear and bright. Some of the tinsel gets tarnished and some stays shining and beautiful like the night before Christmas. Nothing's ever all one way. You know that. It's all mixed up and you've just got to find the part that's right for you.' —Elizabeth and Ben”

“Honest is how I want to look. The truth doesn't glitter and shine.”

“For one last second, I saw them again the way I had that evening: a golden apparition on the front steps, shining and poised like young warriors stepped out of some lost myth, heads lifted, too bright to be real.”

“It's as if people -- normal people -- are made of silver. Shiny to start with, but tarnished by time, by ill-treatment. Luca... Luca is gold. Nothing in the world could ever make him shine less brightly.”

“But her's was the misery of innocence, which, like a cloud that passes over the fair moon, for a while hides, but cannot tarnish its brightness.”