“There he stood, in the camouflage of sun and shade, disfigured by them and masked by his own nakedness.”

“Christine wouldn't choose him. But the reader won't forget him. They won't forget the Phantom's lamentations, his life, his love. They love the disfigured Phantom who casts off his mask.”

“Masks camouflage the faces of both good and evil. Keeps hidden what is a truth and what is a lie.”

“I bare my nakedness to the world that the world may see who I am; not the mask that hides my flaws, not the mask that hides my beauty. I bask in the light and I take off the mask!”

“The sun sifted through the trees around the platform, and Blake stood proudly in its curtain of light. It would be retreating from him this time. He walked over to his old spot in the shade with victory in his step. He’d been trapped there for so long. He shook his head and returned to the sun’s rays, amazed at how powerful that simple act made him feel.”

“He is astonished at the fact of his being, and this astonishment leads to reflection: as he leans over the river of his consciousness, he asks himself if the face that appears there, disfigured by the water, is his own. The singularity of his being, which is pure sensation in children, becomes a problem and a question”