Łączymy z sobą dwoje ludzi, którzy nigdy dotąd nie byli połączeni. Czasem przypomina to tę pierwszą próbę sprzężenia balonu na wodór z balonem na ogrzane powietrze: lepsza katastrofa i pożoga czy pożoga i katastrofa? Ale czasem to się sprawdza i powstaje coś nowego, i świat ulega zmianie. Potem, w którymś momencie, wcześniej lub później, z tego czy innego powodu, jedno zostaje drugiemu odjęte. A to, co zostało odjęte, ma wyższą wartość niż suma tego, co było wcześniej. To może nie być możliwe w matematyce; ale jest możliwe w uczuciach.

Margaret use to say that there were two sorts of women: those with clear edges to them, and those who implied mystery. And that this was the first thing a man sensed, and the first thing that attracted him, or not. Some men are drawn to one type, some the other. Margaret - you won't need me to tell you - was clear-edged, but at times she could be envious of those who carried, or manufactured, an air of mystery.

"I like you just as you are,' I once said to her.
'But you know me so well by now,' she replied. We had been married about six or seven years. 'Wouldn't you prefer it if I were a little more ... unknowable?'

'I don't want you to be a woman of mystery. I think I'd hate it. Either it's just a facade, a game, a technique for ensnaring men, or else the woman of mystery is a mystery to even herself, and that's the worst of all.'

"I had a healthy disrespect for authority, and for as long as I can remember, when someone said 'don't do that,' what I heard was something more along the lines of 'doing that would probably be fun.'"

"If you'd told me at the beginning of sophomore year that I was going to end up a government operative, i would have thought you were crazy, but if you'd told me I was destined to become a cheerleader, I would have had you committed, no questions asked."

There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.