“Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature”

“He made her play and she had almost forgotten how. Life had been so serious and so bitter. He knew how to play and swept her along with him.”

“That a human being had died did not distress her. Had it been somebody she knew it would have upset her; she wasn’t a monster. Had it been somebody she cared about. But it was nobody she knew, and it would have been disingenuous to pretend that the death of somebody she didn’t know affected her on an emotional level.”

“Though there had been moments of beauty in it, Mariam knew that life for most part has been unkind to her. But as she walked the final twenty paces, she could not help but wish for more of it.”

“Her life, except for reading, had been dull—but it had not been in vain.”

“Let her who is forty call herself forty; but if she can be young in spirit at forty, let her show that she is so.”

“They knew each other. He knew her and so himself, for in truth he had never known himself. And she knew him and so herself, for although she had always known herself she had never been able to recognize it until now.”

“She would've been a good woman," said The Misfit, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.”

“Wildness had never been a part of her life. Home, work, home, work. That's all her life had consisted of, really. She'd told Maddox that she'd been glad for her solitude, bu the truth was, there were times she'd been starved for touch. Any touch.”

“Designed originally as a third-rate of sixty-four guns, she had been cut down to her present seize by the removal of most of her upper deck and corresponding armament. But her forty twenty-four pounders remained, with an additional four eighteen-pounders for bow and stern-chasers.”