“But pain is an impatient customer. It wouldn't be long before it demanded attention.”

“Even the loveliest shoulders can bear but so much.”

“Walling herself off circumvented the risk of real closeness between two people and the eventual, unavoidable loss that always accompanies love. Liberating herself from the concern of others served a sinister purpose as well. There were fewer people to whom Anna was accountable. It’s the easiest way to lie and not get caught: make yourself matter to no one”

“Four simple chambers.A thousand complicated doors.One of them is yours.”

“Is that not always the case? Given any two people in a relationship, one will always love more, the other less. Right?”

“But pain is an impatient customer. It wouldn't be long before it demanded attention.”

“Even the ugliest swan is still more beautiful than the loveliest crown on the fence, Anna thought”

“There is a correlation between the severity of a person’s moods and a lack of self-knowledge.”

“No one is promised a tomorrow. She had been wrong about every man she loved or said she loved. She’d been wrong about everything. She’d entered into her life in the middle of its story. She had confused herself with the actress who portrayed her.”

“Shames the shadow of love she thought”

“Ghosts,” Doktor Messerli continued, “aren’t always the spirits of the human dead bound to the earth. A ghost can be the residual feeling that follows an act you have accomplished but feel bad about. Or the act itself. Something you’ve been or done that you cannot escape.”