This book has such a memorable opening for me. Below are the quotes throughout the book, but the first is the opening of the novel.

"The doctor woke up afraid. He had been dreaming of the old house in New Orleans again. He had seen the woman in the rocker. He'd seen the man with the brown eyes." - pg 3

But he knew the garden was impossible, even far away from the reek of the pool. The thorny bougainvillea burst in clumps from beneath the wild cherry laurel. Fat little cherubs, streaked with slime, peered out of overgrown lantana like ghosts. - pg 8

He was letting the television shape his dreams through the various videotapes he loved, the videotapes of the movies he'd watched years ago with his mother. They were "the house movies" to him now, because all of them had not only wonderful stories and wonderful people who had become his heroes and heroines, but wonderful houses. Rebecca had Manderley. Great Expectations had Miss Havisham's ruined mansion. Gaslight had the lovely London town house on the square. The Red Shoes had the mansion by the sea where the lovely dancer went to hear the news that she would soon be the company's prima ballerina. - pg 27

And when he was very small, she had brought him to this quiet sanctuary of old homes, pointing out to him her favourite spots, and the great smooth lawns often half concealed by the camellia shrubs. She had taught him to listen to the cry of the birds in the oaks, to the music of hidden fountains. -pg 40

It seemed to him sometimes that he loved houses more than he loved human beings; he loved them the way that seamen love ships; and he would walk alone after work through the rooms to which he'd given new life, lovingly touching the windowsills, the brass knobs, the silk smooth plaster. He could hear a great house speaking to him. - pg 58

Were there not moments when he felt empty? When he felt as if he were waiting for something, something of extreme importance, and did not know what that was? - pg 64

She couldn't see the tide that lapped ceaselessly at the pilings. The fire was dying out. The eternal chill of the coastal night was moving slowly through the rooms. She had learnt a painful lesson, she thought - that as they die, the ones we love, we lose our witnesses, our watchers, those who know and understand the tiny little meaningless patterns, those words drawn in water with a stick. And there is nothing left but the endless flow. - pg 134

The Talamasca will always remember. We who live in a world of books and crumbling parchment, of flickering candles and eyes sore and squinting in the shadows, have always our hands on history. It is now for us. - pg 276

Steel yourself. Remember that a man does not have to find a woman beautiful to ravage her. Be as cold as a man. - pg 377

He said that certain things were destined but that they could be averted. - pg 449

She lives in dreams. Dreams of green gardens and twilight skies, and exquisite sunsets. There are low-hanging branches there. There is a swing hanging from a beautiful tree. - pg 629

The dead are so close they can hear us, she thought. - pg 672

There were times when their lovemaking was like horse-play, and even more violent than that. But it always ended in tenderness and a feverish embrace, so that he wondered how he had ever slept all these years, without her arms around him. - pg 823

Where is your will to destroy me, beautiful one? - pg 911

Voice like a kiss in the darkness. Not a command, or a plea. Something intimate like the request from a lover whose heart will be broken if he is refused. - pg 923