“Yet if a woman never lets herself go, how will she ever know how far she might have got? If she never takes off her high-heeled shoes, how will she ever know how far she could walk or how fast she could run?”

“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water. ”

“She would defend herself, saying that love, no matter what else it might be, was a natural talent. She would say: You are either born knowing how, or you never know.”

“…tomorrow was her birthday, and she was thinking how fast the years went by, how old she was getting, and how little she seemed to have accomplished. Almost twenty-five and nothing to show for it.”

“She's got a rum job, but she knows how to do it, and to have a job and know how to do it is one of the best things in this life. And if only she stops hankering after Cambridge…”

“A woman never tells you why she loves; she just tells you how she loves.”

“She would wonder what had hurt her when she found her face wet with tears, and then would wonder how she could have been hurt without knowing it.”

“She didn't know how to love, to give herself to someone, to out herself in someone else's keeping and take him into hers. She didn't trust anyone with her heart - or the darker places of her soul.”

“This is how she shows herself a woman indeed,
My lady, and I reproach her for it:
She does not want what one ought to want,
And what she is forbidden to do, she does.”

“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.”