- Laszlo Kreizler: [to guest at engagement ball] It's more than somewhat depressing. Such wanton extravagance fills me with melancholia.
- Libby Hatch: People who can't stand up for themselves are often unhappily blamed for the sins of others.
- Laszlo Kreizler: [to Osgood] The three agencies of action within human nature are appetite, spirit, and reason. Before *me* I see appetite has vanquished both spirit, and reason.
- Laszlo Kreizler: I suspect your compassion stems from a bereavement, Mrs. Carlisle.
- Mrs. Carlisle: My William departed this earth when he was six months old. Nothing compares to losing an infant.
- Laszlo Kreizler: The events earlier this evening were simply a distraction. There's a phenomenon common in visual perception that when something is drawing the eye's attention, an object, a source of light, we become almost blind to surrounding objects.
- Marcus Isaacson: The human eye cannot help but fixate on certain stimuli.
- Lucius Isaacson: And in such cases the person isn't even aware that their perception is limited, so subtle is the effect.
- Laszlo Kreizler: The same can be true of the mind. And so it is with us we have gone off-course.