“Knowing where she was in the world, even if he never touched her, gave him a deep satisfaction, and he half despised himself for being satisfied with so little.”

“...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.”

“So this is how a person can come to despise himself-knowing he's doing the wrong thing and not being able to stop.”

“He would never know know her. Such intimacy but no communication, because words - even if she could speak or write them - could never explain her world to him.”

“He gave to Paige that last part of himself. The part of a male that became more than a lover, more than a heart mate. He gave her that primitive, possessive core that most men hold back. He gave her his being and he felt the momemt she gave to him. And they became more than just one.”

“They are all so beautiful,' she said. He looked down at her. 'Not half so beautiful as you are,' he said. 'Nor do they speak to me, nor touch me. Even Fourpaws will not touch me. Beauty, will you marry me?”