“A fortuneteller at a magicians' convention in Atlantic City once told him that when he fell in love it would be forever, and he laughed at the notion, but now he sees that reading was completely on target.”

“If a rooster crows while you're thinking about a man," the fortuneteller had once told Maria, "then he's the one you'll marry.”

“He told me he fell for me the moment I shouted at him from across the street when he almost ran me off my scooter. I told him it took me longer than that. He doesn't care. I love him now, and that's all that matters.”

“That he would love her no matter what she told him, and that he was the kind of man who loved her already and would love her forever.”

“The city defeated him. It refused to be bent into shape; it stayed a willful, sprawling, sinful place. It even told him as much. When he walked through the gutted wreck of old Saint Paul's, he tripped and fell over a piece of rubble -- a tombstone. When he got to his feet and dusted himself down he saw that it read, in Latin, 'Resurgam' -- 'I Will Rise Again.”

“‎When she looked up at him, it was suddenly easy for her to imagine that her fears were pointless. That he would love her no matter what she told him, and that he was the kind of man who loved her already and would love her forever.”