It had only made him feel like a good man while he watched a bad thing happen.

I have come to believe that this particular kind of person — the kind who sees, and grieves, and stays silent — does a subtler damage than the outright cruel ones, because they let the cruelty proceed while assuring themselves they are not part of it.

Leontyne’s contempt at least never pretended to be anything else.

Horatio’s sympathy pretended to be love, and was in fact only the comfort of a man who wanted to keep his conscience and his peace at the same time, and would sacrifice a daughter-in-law to keep both.

Chapter 21 — Your Worth Remains Absolute

I wrote him back a single sentence: Silence feels like peace to the people who choose it, and like abandonment to the people who suffer under it.