Stephenie Meyer

“Maybe I was what Leah thought she was. Some kind of dead end that shouldn’t be passed on to another generation. Or maybe it was just that my life was a big, cruel joke, and there was no escape from the punch line. -Jacob”

“That’s the funny thing about knowing you can’t have something. It makes you desperate. -Leah”

“This love was tricky...was it simply better somehow? Because these humans could hate with so much fury, was the other end of the spectrum that they could love with more heart and zeal and fire?”

“I hate you for making me want you so much.(Edward)”

“melanie: well, tell himwanda: what will happen then?melanie: you know what will happen. kyle broke the rules. jeb will shoot him, or they'll kick him ou. meybe ian will beat the snot out of him first.that would be fun to watch.”

“you're strong, you're fast, and you're smart.”

“Don't you think, then..." Ian paused and leaned closer to me so that I couldn't seem to see anything around his face, just snow and sapphire and ink. "That maybe you should make the most of what time you have? That you should live while you're alive?”

“What am I going to do with you? Yesterday I kiss you, and you attack me! Today you pass out on me!”

“In Gym, the kids on my team learned not to pass me the ball and to step quickly in front of me if the other team tried to take advantage of my weakness. I happily stayed out of their way.”

“When I came here as a child, he would always remove the bullets as soon as he walked in the door. I guess he considered me old enough now not to shoot myself by accident, and not depressed enough to shoot myself on purpose.”

“Hello I'm Edward and you are? Bella sorry I didn't get a chance to introduce myself last week.”

“Like all bullies, they’re cowards underneath the swagger”

“I had found my place in the world, the place I fit, the place I shined.”

“Thank you, Wanda. My sister. I will never forget you.Be happy, Mel. Enjoy it all. Appreciate it for me.”

“Look, just stop trying to annihilate yourself, okay? Because if I think you can do it, I'll make Doc pull me out today. Or I'll tell Jared. Just imagine what he would do.I imagined it for her, smiling a little through my tears. Remeber? He said no guarantees about what he would or wouldn't do to keep you here. I though of those buring kisses in the hall...thought of other kisses and other nights in her memory. My face warmed as I blushed.You fight dirty.You bet I do.”

“NO!" She shouted through my lips. Jared caught her hands, then caught me against the wall before I could fall. I sagged, my body confused by the conflicting directions it was receiving."Mel? Mel!""What are you doing?"He groaned in relief. "I knew you could do it! Ah Mel!"He kissed her again, kissed the lips that she controlled, and we could both taste the tears that ran down his face.She bit him.Jared jumped back from both of us, and I slid to the floor, landing in a wilted heap. He started laughing, "That's my girl. You still got her, Wanda?""Yes," I gasped.What the hell, Wanda? She screeched at me.Where have you been? Do you have any idea what I've been going through trying to find you?Yeah, I can see that you were really suffering.”

“Why does Ian think I have to kiss you?”

“Are tou trying to be annoying?" I demanded. My patience was not waning, but entirely gone. "Because if you are, then be assured, you have succeeded."Jared and Wes looked at me with shocked eyes. "I am female," I complained. "That 'it' business is really getting on my nerves." Jared blinked in surprise, then his face settled back into harder lines. "Because of the body you wear?"Wes glared at him."Because of me," I hissed."By whose definition?""How about by yours? In my species, I am the one that bears young. Is that not female enough for you?"That stopped him short. I felt almost smug. 'As you should', Melanie approved. 'He's wrong and he's being a pig about it'. Thank you.'We girls have to stick together'.”

“My arms broke free from my control. My left hand reached for his face, his hair, to wind my fingers in it. My right hand was faster, was not mine. Melanie's fist punched his jaw, knocked his face away from mine with a blunt, low sound. Flesh against flesh, hard and angry. The force of it was not enough to move him far, but he scrambled away from me the instant our lips were no longer connected, gaping with horrorstruck eyes at my horrorstruck expression. I stared down at the still-clenched fist, as repulsed as if I'd found a scorpion growing on the end of my arm. A gasp of revulsion choked its way out of my throat. I grabbed the right wrist with my left hand, desperate to keep Melanie from using my body for violence again. I glanced up at Jared. He was staring at the fist I restrained, too, the horror fading, surprise taking its place. In that second, his expression was entirely defenseless. I could easily read his thoughts as they moved across his unlocked face. This was not what he had expected. And he's had expectations; that was plain to see. This had been a test. A test he'd thought he was prepared to evaluate. But he'd been surprised.Did that mean pass or fail? The pain in my chest was not a surprise. I already knew that a breaking heart was more than an exaggeration. In a flight-or-fight situation, I never had a choice; it would always be flight for me. Because Jared was between me and the darkness of the tunnel exit, I wheeled and threw myself into the box-packed hole. I was sobbing because it had been a test, and, stupid, stupid, stupid, emotional creature that I was, I wanted it to be real.Melanie was writhing in agony inside me, and it was hard to make sense of the double pain. I felt as thought I was dying because it wasn't real; she felt as though she was dying because, to her, it had felt real enough. In all that she'd lost since the end of the world, so long ago, she'd never before felt betrayed. 'No one's betrayed you, stupid,' I railed at her. 'How could he? How?' she ranted, ignoring me. We sobbed beyond control. One word snapped us back from the edge of hysteria.From the mouth of the hole, Jared's low, rough voice - broken and strangely childlike - asked, "Mel?""Mel?" he asked again, the hope he didn't want to feel colouring his tone. My breath caught in another sob, an aftershock. "You know that was for you, Mel. You know that. Not for h- it. You know I wasn't kissing it." "If you're in there, Mel..." He paused.Melanie hated the "if". A sob burst up through my lungs and I gasped for air. "I love you," Jared said. "Even if you're not there, if you can't hear me, I love you.”

“I can hear them on the floor below. They will find me in miuntes, or seconds. I scrawl the words on a dirty shred of newsprint. They are nearly illegible, but if he finds them, he will understand:'Not fast enough. Love you love Jamie. Don't go home'Not only do I break their hearts, I steal their refuge, too. I picture our little canyon abandoned, as it must be forever now. Or if not abandoned, a tomb.”

“We've got time," Jared says again.An abrupt panic, like a warning premonition, makes it impossible for me to speak for a moment. He watches the change on my face with worried eyes. "You don't know that." The despair that softened when he found me strikes like the lash of a whip. "You can't know how much time we'll have. You don't know if we should be counting in months or days or hours."He laughs a warm laugh, touching his lips to the tense place where my eyebrows pull together. "Don't worry, Mel. Miracles don't work that way. I'll never lose you. I'll never let you get away from me."She brought me back to the present - to the thin ribbon of the highway winding through the Arizona wasteland, baking under the fierce noon sun - without my choosing to return. I stared at the empty place ahead and felt the empty place inside. Her thought sighed faintly in my head: you never know how much time you'll have.The tears I was crying belonged to both of us.”

“Melanie still grieves for Jared," she stated. I felt my head nod without willing the action. "You grieve for him."I closed my eyes."The dreams continue?""Every night," I mumbled."Tell me about then." Her voice was soft, persuasive. "I don't like to talk about them.""I know. Try. It might help.""How? How will it help to tell you that I see his face every time I close my eyes? That I wake up and cry when he's not there? That the memories are so strong I can't separate hers from mine anymore?”

“I flicked on the light beside my bed, waiting for my breathing to slow, veins full of adrenaline from the realistic dream. A new dream, but in essence so much the same as the many others that had plagued me in the past months. No, not a dream. Surely a memory. I could still feel the heat of Jared's lips on mine. My hands reached out without my permission, searching across the rumpled sheets, looking for something they didn't find. My heart ached when they gave up, falling to the bed limp and empty.”

“Please don't run away. And, um, I'd rather you didn't kick me again either.”

“My name is Jared Howe. I haven't spoken to another human being in more than two years, so I'm sure I must seem...a little crazy to you.”

“Good luck, little Wanderer, good luck. How I wish you didn't need it.”

“So let's say my bad luck did crash the plane. What exactly are were you going to do about it?' 'Why is the plane crashing?' He was trying to hide a smile now. 'The piolets are passed out and drunk.' 'Easy. I'd fly the plane.' Of course. I pursed my lips and tried again. 'Both engines have exploded and we're falling in a death spiral towards the earth.' 'I'd wait till we were close enough to the ground, get a good grip on you, kick out the wall, and jump. Then, I'd run you back to the scene of the accident, and we'd stumble around like the two luckiest surviours in history.' I stared at him wordlessly. 'What?' He wispered." - Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, Eclipse”

“It's like pain, this pleasure.”

“Uncle Jeb," we croaked in surprise. "You found us.""Well, now," he said, and his gruff voice brought back a hundred memories. "Well, now, here's a pickle.”

“I used to dream about him all the time," Sunny whispered to me. "Every night. I kept hoping the Seekers would find him; I missed him so much...When I saw him, I thought it was the old dream again.”

“Dad used to say lots of funny things - like he was speaking his own language sometimes. Twenty-three skidoo, salad days, nosey parker, bandbox fresh, the catbird seat, chocolate teapot, and something about Grandma sucking eggs. One of his favourites was 'safe as houses'. Teaching me to ride a bike, my mother worrying in the doorway: "Calm down, Linda, this street is as safe as houses." Convincing Jamie to sleep without his nightlight: "It's as safe as houses in here, son, not a monster for miles." Then overnight the world turned into a hideous nightmare, and the phrase became a black joke to Jamie and me. Houses were the most dangerous places we knew. Hiding in a patch of scrubby pines, watching a car pull out from the garage of a secluded home, deciding whether to make a food run, whether it was too dicey. "Do you think the parasites'll be long gone?" "No way - that place is as safe as houses. Let's get out of here."And now I can sit here and watch TV like it is five years ago and Mom and Dad are in the other room and i've never spent a night hiding in a drainpipe with Jamie and a bunch of rats while bodysnatchers with spotlights search for the thieves who made off with a bag of dried beans and a bowl of cold spaghetti.I know that if Jamie and I survived alone for twenty years we would never find this feeling on our own. The feeling of safety. More than safety, even - happiness. Safe and happy, two things I thought i'd never feel again. Jared made us feel that way without trying, just be being Jared.I breathe in the scent of his skin and feel the warmth of his body under mine.Jared makes everything safe, everything happy. Even houses.”

“Hey Wanda! Hey Ian!" Jamie was all grins, his messy hair bouncing as he moved..."Guess what? Jared was saying at lunch that he didn't think it was fair for you to have to move out of the room you were used to. He said we weren't being good hosts. He said you should move back in with me! Isn't that great? I asked him if I could tell you right away, and he said that was a good idea. He said you would be in here.""I'll bet he did," Ian murmured."So, what do you think, Wanda? We get to be roomies again!""But Jamie, where will Jared stay?""Wait - let me guess," Ian interrupted. "I bet he said the room was big enough for three. Am I right?" "Yeah. How did you know?""Lucky guess"..."Will you come back?" Jamie begged against my shoulder..."If that's what you want, Jamie. Okay.""Woo hoo!" Jamie crowed in my ear. "Cool! I'm gonna go tell Jared! I'll get you some food, too, okay?...You want something, Ian?""Sure, kid. I want you to tell Jared he's shameless.”

“Now, we'll have to hang out here until we're sure Jared's really gone and can't catch us." He grinned conspiratorially. "Then we'll have some fun!" I remembered that his idea of fun was usually along the lines of an armed standoff.”

“Something I've never seen in all my lives. I'm staring at... hope." - Wanda”

“Aw, hell!" Kyle grumbled. My gaze flickered toward him at the sound of his voice. I could just see his bright eyes around Jared's elbow, focused on me. " It didn't fall!" He complained. Jared lundged forward, away from me. With a loud smacking sound, his fist hit Kyle's face. Kyle's eyes rolled back in his head, and his mouth fell slack. The room was very quiet for a few seconds. "Um," Doc said in a mild voice, "medically speaking, I'm not sure that was the most helpful thing for his condition." "But I feel better," Jared answered, sullen.”

“It takes a few days for the transformation to be complete, depending on how much venom is in the bloodstream, how close the venom is to the heart. As long as the heart keeps beating, poison spreads, healing, changing the body as it moves through it. Eventually the heart stops, and the conversion is finished. But all the time, every minute of it, a victim would be wishing for death”

“From that first little touch, the whole world had shifted. Where before there was just one thing I could not live without, now there were two. There was no division – my love was not split between them now; it wasn’t like that. It was more like my heart had grown, swollen up to twice its size in that moment. All that extra space, already filled. The increase was almost dizzying.”

“Like the thick quilt I'd played under as a child, the dark felt familiar and protecting.”

“I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled myself closer to him until my lips touched his.”

“I felt a surge of pity, and relief. Pity because, as beautiful as they were, they were outsiders, clearly not accepted. Relief that I wasn’t the only newcomer here, and certainly not the most interesting by any standard.--Bella Swan”

“The thing about the sun… is that it’s always there. Like sometimes, you can’t see it, but it never really goes away.”

“I’ll miss you. No matter how short a time you’re gone.”

“Now you know. No one’s ever loved anyone as much as I love you.”

“f it hurts you so much, how can it possibly be the right thing for you?”

“I was just thinking – today is the first and last day of forever. It’s kind of hard to wrap my head around it. Even with all this extra room for wrapping.”

“It was a weird thing for me, because I don't read vampire books. I don't watch vampire movies. I'm not into the horror genre. I'm a wuss, I'm a scaredy cat.”

“I pushed my legs faster, letting Jacob Black disappear behind me.”

“Jacob,I'm breaking the rules by sending you this. She was afraid of hurting you, and she didn't want to make you feel obligated in any way. But I know that, if things had gone the other way, I would have wanted the choice.I promise I will take care of her, Jacob. Thank you-for her- for everything.Edward.”

“You don't fight fair," he accused.I grinned back at him."Never said I did.”

“I've got so much to do! Go play with Edward. I have to get to work."She dashed out of the room, yelling,"Esme!" as she disappeared.”