“Last night it had been my father who had finally said it: "She’s never coming home." A clear and easy piece of truth that everyone who had ever known me had accepted. But he needed to say it, and she needed to hear him say it.”

“Who will wonder that Barbara had a headache, or that Barbara's mother was disposed to be cross, or that she slightly underrated Astley's, and thought the clown was older than they had taken him to be last night? Kit was not surprised to hear her say so--not he. He had already had a misgiving that the inconstant actors in that dazzling vision had been doing the same thing the night before last, and would do it again that night, and the next, and for weeks and months to come, though he would not be there. Such is the difference between yesterday and today. We are all going to the play, or coming home from it.”

“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.”

“For the last year his grandma had been slipping in and out of reality. One minute she was as clear as a bell and the next she was calling him Simon. Who was Simon? He had no idea.”

“The story starts when it was hot and it was summer and…
I had it all, I had him right there where I wanted him
She came along, got him alone and let's hear the applause
She took him faster than you could say "sabotage"I never saw it coming, wouldn't have suspected it
I underestimated just who I was dealing with
She had to know the pain was beating on me like a drum
She underestimated just who she was stealing from”

“She had no need to ask why he had come. She knew as certainly as if he had told her that he was here to be where she was.”

“As far as I know, he never asked where she had been or why she had left and she never told. I guess some stories do not need telling.”

“Like her father, he wasn't comfortable sharing his thoughts and feelings. She tried to explain that she needed to be closer to him, but it had never seemed to make a difference.”

“She was the stone-faced queen, then and ever after. She had needed the mask to rule, and she had been glad to have it. She wondered if Eugenides was glad of his.”

“I had heard my father say that he never knew a piece of land run away or break.”