“Why do humans always look at these things from the wrong perspective? Predators deserve our sympathy, too.”

“Just remember, girls: The young male vampire is a predator by nature. Some boys may look at you not only as a romantic interest, but as prey...”

“But some things are just too dangerous to live, I suppose.”

“Someday, Jessica, he says quietly, you will stand before me in this very room, as we prepare for some function whichwe both dread, for we have been to so many in our years together, and you will smile and reach up to adjust my crooked tie, as you always do. And one of our children—perhaps our first son—will tug at your dress, demanding our attention. Then I will kiss you, and reach down to lift our child, thinking, How did I come to be so happy?”

“American women. Why do you all want to be nearly invisible? Why not have a physical presence in the world? Women should have curves, not angles. ...One should never confuse fashionable with beautiful. ...Eat. Be happy to have curves. A presence.”

“As you know, I have always been curious about our immortality... how it feels to live on and on through time....I need speculate no longer, I have sampled eternity in Miss Campbell's fifth period "social studies" class. Three days on the concept of "manifest destiny," Vasile. THREE DAYS. I yearned to stand up, rip her lecture notes from her pallid hands, and scream, 'Yes, America expanded westward! Is that not logical, given that Europeans settled on the Eastern shore? What else were they to do? Advance vainly into the sea?”

“And maybe I was a little intense. But not as much as the princess who marched into that court in a very unprofessional pair of jeans and a T-shirt, looking like she had gone to hell and back--and was about to drag the rest of us back there with her, just like I kinda planned to do.I knew it in a split second--and everybody else knew it too, even old Fabio--that we weren't just seeing a princess standing there in a pair of jeans and boots.We were all getting our first glimpse of the next queen.”