“She's trapped me on the front side of the counter. Way. Too. Close. To. Her. LIP-GLOSS.”

“She could not ignore life. She had to live it and it was too brutal, too hostile, for her even to try to gloss over its harshness with a smile.”

“Mulling this over, Vlad wiped her lip gloss from his lips with the back of his hand.Vampires, after all, didn't sparkle.”

“He saw the reflection of her face in a compact mirror as she painted on her re lips. She did it with such care, he had felt she was trapping something behind the colour.She had touched life, played with it a little, bit it was a slippery bugger,and finally we must close the door, and leave it behind.”

“After running for my life from hunters, a girl with too much lip gloss doesn't register on my fear radar.”

“The situation was not easy for her, they knew. Once, at the start of last semester, she had skipped into her lecture hall singing "Getting to Know You" - both verses. At the request of the dean the chairman had called her into his office, but did not ask her for an explanation, not really. He asked her how she was and then smiled in an avuncular way. She said, "Fine," and he studied the way she said it, her front teeth catching on the inside of her lower lip. She was almost pretty, but her face showed the strain and ambition of always having been close but not quite.”