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Though her mind was in no way ready to be a mother, her body marched steadily on as her due date approached, preparing itself to become one. Riki was once again reminded that she was, in the end, nothing more than an animal.

But even a dull man sometimes ended up on top, as long as he said and did the right things.

In this society, you could command respect as long as you were someone’s wife, no matter how dull your husband was. The world would always defer to a woman who was the property of a man. Though, of course, that respect was ultimately directed toward the husband more than the wife

He needed to see for himself just how talented his child would be. It wasn’t just the child’s innate talent he cared about, but how hard it would work to apply that talent, what other abilities it might have, whether it would grow into a trustworthy person. Clearly, his desire for a child was really about his own ego.

That books are a weapon against loneliness. Putting them in the right hands lets people see one another. It makes us . . . better to one another. I think that’s a worthy thing to do.

It made Riki furious that men were allowed to buy women yet ridiculed them when they chose to sell themselves.

But eventually she realized what made these jobs so intolerable to her: it was the sense that her fate was already decided, that there was nowhere else to go—while, in reality, she still had no idea who she was, or what she wanted to do with her life.

It doesn’t feel right, but what feels right and what is right aren’t always the same.

The wicked could hardly conceive of the motives that drove the kind and the compassionate, and it left them vulnerable

the famous swords of antique myth had vivid personalities for good reason. Such weapons were best thought of as stand-ins for the human soul, which was itself a kind of blade, and a body only its sheath.

Mistakes don’t make you evil,” I said. “Even stupid mistakes. Not as long as you learn from them and work to do better.

Most dreams were born of simple mental static, random voltage jolting the neural pathways to create a storm of sights and sounds. Dreaming was when we spun order from that mental chaos and wove it into story.

Humans don’t need magical help to be talented or brilliant or cruel or evil.

Even dumbasses had motives. Dumbass motives, but motives nonetheless.

Fashion was a weapon, one that could be wielded for offense or defense to control people’s reactions, how they saw you, what they did and didn’t focus on.

TV and smartphones were a whole other class of spirit killers. And I’d have bet anything there was underworld backing for some of those social media sites, even if I’d never been able to prove it.

an author and their art were one and the same. That an author’s works were not like children, but more like incarnations. They were their authors. And that as long as people continued to read them, they would live on.

“All things must grow, and then die, so that new things can grow. No tree can live forever, just as no person can,” I told her, taking her hand.

“But a book could, my love,” she whispered desperately.

Later I learned it was that way with writers, that everything seemed like fate or magic to them, and it was always totally normal.

One must ascribe to the object a certain degree of attachment in order to belie the appearance of betrayal.

Every movement's greatest sin is that it gives itself a name.

We differ in our understanding of love, but feeling is a universal rule, not some human construct. Man-made ideas are based purely, of course, on knowledge. Those that apply for all eternity transcends it. Truth is something that has to be lived, not something that has to be known.

The sea, the indifferent sea, is party to the crime. Neutrality is judgment. Silence conveys consent and condemnation.

No one noticed that, beneath the hopeful slogans, nothing was any different from the Spanish regime, for the newcomer, too, had early on made no inhibitions in operating for the common greed of the exclusive few.