“This world today makes one by the day a recluse”

“Without war there are no heroes.""What harm would that be?""Oh, Lavinia, what a woman's question that is.”

“I caught him by the collar and dumped him into the nearest bin."That's where people like YOU belong!" I spat at him as his legs wiggled in the air. "In the garbage!" - Chapter 2: Miserable Torture”

“Keith traced my face, traced my hands and traced my body as the crickets chirped a love song and I lost myself in his eyes that stroked my soul and punctured my heart, like a poison arrow in a shooting star”

“Lavinia has seen this happen, seen how, one day, a girl will raise her head to listen, as if for the first time, to the crying of a child, to the sound of an oar being hauled in, to a man's voice, to the screech of a saw pulling through wood, to some comment one of the women might make. Within a week, the girl will be able to tell at any minute of the day or night, precisely where every soul in the place is. Then - or so Lavinia imagines, for it has never happened to her - one morning before light, before the girl has awakened, a map, new and totally different, will be imprinted behind her closed eyelids.”

“This world today makes one by the day a recluse”

“Love is indeed its own hallucinogenic affecting the mind, heart and mood”

“Don't ever live vicariously. This is your life. Live.”

“I have a hundred reasons to dislike this gentleman,” Erica reminded herself aloud. “And a thousand reasons more not to go courting with any man.”Lavinia laughed at that. “Whenever has a woman’s heart listened to her head?”

“Aunt Lavinia always had a near-religious belief that it was wicked to inflict one's personal despair on others. Any display of self-pity or self-dissatisfaction she saw as a social cruelty that was very nearly criminal.”

“I can never get used to the fact, though I know it, that women are born cynics. Men have to learn cynicism. Infant girls could teach it to them.”