Emily St. John Mandel

"Frank standing on a stool on his wondrously functional pre-Libya legs, the bullet that would sever his spinal cord still twenty-five years away but already approaching: a woman giving birth to a child…"

"Tesch seems to be someone who mistakes rudeness for intellectual rigor."

"“I’m a man of my word,” Jeevan said. At that point in his directionless life he wasn’t sure if this was true or not, but it was nice to think that it might be."

"The horse, Bernstein, was missing half his tail, because the first cello had just restrung his bow last week."

"Miranda is aware of how pretentious this sounds, but is it still pretentious if it’s true?"

"It’s possible that no one who didn’t grow up in a small place can understand how beautiful this is, how the anonymity of city life feels like freedom."

"“Hell is other actors,” Kirsten said. “Also ex-boyfriends."

"She tried to keep this opinion to herself and occasionally succeeded."