“And so because he was half bastard, half gentleman, he asked for her bra”

“Saw him where?""While I was sitting outside with one of my half aunts."This seemed to satisfy Ronan was well, because he asked, "What's the other half of her?""God, Ronan," Adam said. "Enough.”

“There ain't half been some clever bastards”

“...Many years ago he had taken the passion he felt for Susan and folded it in half, so he no longer had a drowning, helpless feeling when he glimpsed her beside him in bed: her ropy arms and soft, generous ass. Then he'd folded it in half again, so when he felt desire for Susan, it no longer brought with it the edgy terror of never being satisfied. Then in half again, so that feeling desire entailed no immediate need to act. Then in half again, so he hardly felt it. His desire was so small in the end that Ted could slip it inside his desk or a pocket and forget about it, and this gave him a feeling of safety and accomplishment, having dismantled a perilous apparatus that might have crushed them both.”

“He whirled in the water and grinned at me. Damn, he was a handsome bastard. I realized he was half-naked. Blue swirls of tattoos painted his chest. When God made that chest, he did to tempt women.”

“They like bright colors," she said. He smiled at her, those dark tameless eyes, half-bold and half-shy. "They like beautiful things," he said.”