“There was something abstract and gentle about the experience of being ignored—a feeling of being spared, a known impossibility of anything happening—that was consonant with my understanding of love.”
“The work of art she was creating was her own character: how she acted, how she was, how other people saw her. From this perspective, the aesthetic wasn't really the opposite of the ethical. The way Isabel wanted to be, and act, and seem, was generous and brave. Her main goal was to avoid meanness, jealousy, and cruelty—not because God said they weren't permitted, but because who even wanted to be like that?”
