“I had been allowed to believe in man's innate goodness for the twenty-two years of my life, and I had hoped to carry the belief with me to my grave.”

“...and I wondered, not for the first time, if some of life's tragedy arose when people put themselves in situations they were not by nature suited for.”

“I wondered if all a person could hope for was illusion and luck, for I was forced to conclude that the world was fundamentally and appallingly dangerous. It is a lesson I will never forget.”

“...Mr. Hardie had little patience with that sort of conversation."Ye're born, ye suffer, and ye die. What made ye think ye deserved different?" he wondered aloud when the deacon's gentle answers failed to quiet them.”

“Mr Reichman was brilliant and very good at what he did, but he was still a man, and men rarely knew what decisions a woman had or hadn't made.”

“I had been allowed to believe in man's innate goodness for the twenty-two years of my life, and I had hoped to carry the belief with me to my grave.”