“One of the most difficult things he'd ever done was turn away and leave her standing in the shadows.”

“If he'd learned one thing while he'd been away, it was that loneliness is the most taboo subject in the world. Forget sex or politics or religion. Or even failure. Loneliness is what clears out a room.”

“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine.”

“It’s difficult to ever go back to the same places or people. You turn away, even for a moment, and when you turn back around, everything’s changed.”

“There are only three things to be done with a woman. You can love her, suffer for her, or turn her into literature.”

“Far away in the thirties and forties she (the girl you want to be) is waiting her turn. Her body, brain, her soul are in your girlish hands. She cannot help herself. What will you leave for her? … Will you throw away her inheritance?”

“Dawson, she knew, had saved Alan's life- but in the end, he'd saved Jared's as well. And for her that meant… everything. 'I gave you the best of me,' he'd told her once, and with every beat of her son's heart, she knew he'd done exactly that.”

“Staying silent, staying away from him… that was the hardest thing I've ever done.”

“… nobody was ever really ready to turn off their mother's machine, no matter what they thought; to turn off the light of their childhood and walk away, just as if they were turning out a light and leaving a room.”

“One of the things he'd always loved about Clary was how easily caught up in her imagination she was, how easily she could wall herself away in illusory worlds of curses and princes and destiny and magic.”