Briony began to understand the chasm that lay between an idea and its execution.

Narrative tension is primarily about withholding information.

A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended.

Self-consciousness is the destroyer of erotic joy.

Watching him during the first several minutes of his delivery, Cecilia felt a pleasant sinking sensation in her stomach as she contemplated how deliciously self-destructive it would be, almost erotic, to be married to a man so nearly handsome, so hugely rich, so unfathomably stupid. He would fill her with his big-faced children, all of them loud, boneheaded boys with a passion for guns and football and aeroplanes.

We know so little about each other. We lie mostly submerged, like ice floes, with our visible social selves projecting only cool and white.

The trouble with being a daydreamer who doesn’t say much is that the teachers at school, especially those who don’t know you very well, are likely to think you’re rather stupid. Or, if not stupid, then dull. No one can see the amazing things that are going on in your head.