“A good fiction writer can write any character or any story that she wants to write. The importance, IMO, is a burning desire to tell that person's story.”

“Forget about writing to Penthouse.This one was going to be a story for their grandkids.”

“I’m going to carry you now,” he told her, “so we can move even faster. I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. Any response from you is unnecessary and unwelcome.”

“Recovering from a gunshot wound is not a vacation. You need to, like, write that on your hand or something.”

“If you want, I can carry you—” “I’m fine,” she said shortly. “Let’s go.”He’d said that wrong. He should have said, “I want to carry you.”

“I’m not a big drinker and I’ve had enough secondhand smoke for this decade and the next, so . . .”Great. All she had to do was complain about the deafening volume of the music, and she might as well slap a sticker on her forehead saying old next to the one that already said nerd.“Band’s good, though,” she added. “Country’s not my thing, but the players are . . . proficient.” And great, now she sounded like a professor. Proficient. God.But he was nodding. “Country’s not my thing, either.”“But you have a cowboy hat,” she said, and as soon as the words left her lips, she realized how stupid she sounded, no—not that she sounded, but that she was.”

“You can't choose who you love, Kelly, but you can waste it. Why on earth would anyone want to waste it?”