“He had learned that sometimes, watching someone work or standing beside them, looking at stars or at bugs or at a sunset, was far more communicative than the eternal babble that sprung from his own wayward tongue.”

“Maybe that’s why his lovers hadn’t worked out so far. Maybe before you got someone who would fight to have you, you had to be ready to kill or die for them first.”

“She taught him that sometimes, when someone was in emotional denial, they needed proof of how wrong they really were. Sometimes they needed actions instead of words. Sometimes they needed someone to make the hard decision or to say the painful thing, or they would be lost and locked in their own hearts forever.”

“He didn’t scream hysterically or stand up and kick the headstone or any of that. He put his face on his knees and listened as the wind from the mountains mercilessly leveled everything in its path. He remembered the person who had helped him fly with the wind instead of being beaten down by it, and he cried quietly into his knees, finally knowing how the big of the sky could make a person feel as alone as a heartbeat in space.”

“Malcolm chuckled wickedly. "You, my American friend, are like a hidden landmine of sex appeal. I'm going to have to look out for you.""Too late." Owen raised his face to the unfamiliar smells, breezes, sounds of the city, enjoying them even more now that he knew something of it and it had become personal to him. "I've already exploded. You're caught."He tilted his head back and laughed, inviting Malcolm to share the joke, but Malcolm was unusually quiet.....”

“Well, sometimes small dreams had grandeur, he thought with dignity. Sometimes, the small dreams were all a person needed to live.”

“This time, he fumbled for Collin's hand in the elevator. He still felt like a thief, there was no denying it, but sometimes thieves stole things because they needed them to live.”