You can tell a lot from a person's nails. When a life starts to unravel, they're among the first to go.

There are ways in which art can have a longer reach than politics.

In Leon's account of his life, no-one was mean-spirited, no-one schemed or lied or betrayed; everyone was celebrated at least in some degree... Leon turned out to be a spineless, grinning idiot.

When there are no consequences, being wrong is simply a diversion.

The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse.

The evasions of her little novel were exactly those of her life. Everything she did not wish to confront was also missing from her novella--and was necessary to it.

She wanted to leave, she wanted to lie alone face down on her bed and savor the vile piquancy of the moment, and go back down the lines of branching consequences to the point before the destruction began. She needed to contemplate with eyes closed the full richness of what she had lost, what she had given away, and to anticipate the new regime.