“Aside from an unwholesome taste for string quartets, and a certain gullibility about predigested sociology, she passed the McGee test with about a B+. Hell, an A-. Maybe somebody had given her the Vance Packard books.”

“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.”

“She was too tired to feel anything more, she wanted a book to do to her what books did: take away the world, slide it aside for a little bit, and let her please, please just be somewhere and somebody else”

“And maybe she had certain beliefs that if you love somebody, [you're] gonna like them too. And that isn't necessarily true.”

“When a woman forgets gossip, McGee, she is nearing the end of her road.”

“I knew I had to be sure-footed about the issues I was talking about. When you're twenty-nine years old, who the hell is going to think you're credible? It wasn't enough to have ideas; I had to know my facts. I had to demonstrate command from the minute I started running. I understood that was the test I had to pass.”

“She had great knowledge about India. I again got startled when the Queen asked about my house in Bangalore. She said she had twice passed by my house at Nandi Hills during her visit to the place with the Maharaja of Mysore, who told her it belonged to the Elayaraja of Travancore.”

“Books are not about passing time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand.”

“Audrey had an angelic quality about her. She didn't act like she was better than everyone, she just had a presence, an energy, a sort of light coming from within her that was overwhelming.”

“In such a way she had done what her people prized above all else: she had given her respect to those different from herself.”