“The cheerful tides of friends and neighbors, over the years, had washed away nearly all the stains that the dark rage Agne’s father had impressed on these rooms. She hoped her brothers might eventually see that hatred and anger are only scars upon a beach, while love is the rolling surf that ceaselessly smooths the sand.”

“I shall never forget the impression which our first landing on the beach of California make upon me. The sun had just gone down; it was getting dusky; the damp night wind was beginning to blow, and the heavy swell of the Pacific was setting in, and breaking in loud and high "combers" on the beach… we put our oars in the boat, and, leaving one to watch it, walked about the beach to see what we could of the place. The beach is nearly a mile in length between the two points, and of smooth sand… It was growing dark, so that we could just distinguish the dim outlines of the two vessels in the offing; and the great seas were rolling in in regular lines, growing larger and larger as they approached the shore, and hanging over the beach upon which they were to break, when their tops would curl over and turn white with foam, and, being at one extreme of the line, break rapidly to the other, as a child's long card house falls when a card is knocked down at one end.”

“Cynicism did not seem nearly so impressively daring to her now as it had when she was twenty.”

“she was glad she had been scarred. She said that whoever loved her now would love her true self, and not her pretty face.”

“He was wrong, as all are who rouse the passive resistance of a woman's nature. The indignity and violence with which she was treated only made her turn more fondly to the shelter of the loving heart she believed was so truly her own. Kindness might have brought her to her father's feet, ready to give up her dearest hopes for his sake; but his harsh anger only made her tremble at the hopeless future.”

“She had always thought she would be like her father, and fancied a tall, dark, and handsome face.”

“Those [Christians] had left to love on earth were then: brothers and sisters in hatred, whom they called then: brothers and sisters in love.”

“The knowledge that she would never be loved in return acted upon her ideas as a tide acts upon cliffs.”

“The scars of your love remind me of us
They keep me thinking that we almost had it all.
The scars of your love they leave me breathless.
I can’t help feeling
We could have had it all.
Rolling in the deep.
You had my heart inside of your hand
And you played it
To the beat.”

“Sure, this was where her father had planned the De Beers diamond heist when she was three. It was the very room where her uncle had orchestrated the hijacking of eighty percent of the world's caviar when she was seven.”