“ First you say I am a murderer - an agent in league against you - and now I am a deluded heartsick girl! Pray make up your mind so I can scoff at you with precision! Gordon Dahlquist
“ Beauty is more a danger than intelligence or wit. One becomes a living mirror for the inadequacies of others. Gordon Dahlquist
“ When they find what they don't like , they destroy it. Because it scares them-and you girls would scare them as much as anything they've ever seen.' 'Why?' asked Isobel. 'Because . . . because of what… Gordon Dahlquist
“ She did not especially appreciate children either, but could be kind to them when they were silent. Gordon Dahlquist
“ She was difficult, she knew. She did not make friends. She was brisk and demanding, unsparing and indulgent. Gordon Dahlquist
“ She knew how fortunate she was to have her independence, and to have a disposition that cared so little for the opinions of others. Let them talk, she thought, as long as they also saw her holding her… Gordon Dahlquist
“ Chang despised authority on principle, for even when veiled by the rubric of practical necessity or the weight of tradition he could not see institutional power as anything but an expression of arbitr… Gordon Dahlquist
“ Wake him or put a bullet through his brain. No one will protest. Or leave him—but I suggest choosing, my dear. I have learned it is best to be haunted by one’s actions rather than one’s lack of them. Gordon Dahlquist
“ There are so many ways to tell time-one way with clocks and watches and sunsets, or other ways with how many times a person laughs, or what they forget, or how they change their minds about what they… Gordon Dahlquist
“ That she now had a kind of uniform and a set of tools made everything that much easier and much less about her particular feelings, for tasks requiring clothes and accoutrements were by definition obj… Gordon Dahlquist
“ Is thinking small? asked Isobel. Small as air. May tapped my head with her finger. And just as big. Gordon Dahlquist
“ Heroines did not pick their own battles—the ones they knew they could win. On the contrary, they managed what they had to manage, and they did not lie to themselves about relying on others for help in… Gordon Dahlquist
“ Did not pleasure depend on an architecture of perspective—on contrast and delay, withholding and loss? Did not true enjoyment rely on facing the future? Gordon Dahlquist
“ Despite himself he scoffed—a staccato bark of saliva—at the very notion of ladders. Gordon Dahlquist
“ What was it about disfigurement, however arbitrary the source, that led the mind to underestimate, even dismiss the victim … Gordon Dahlquist
“ What use is decency when we have been thrust into this peril—treading about without even a corset! Are we to be judged? Gordon Dahlquist
“ There was too much to say - she wanted to prove her independence but knew the Contessa would not care, she wanted revenge but knew the Contessa would never admit her defeat. Gordon Dahlquist
