“Christopher throws dandelion head after dandelion head into his bag. It's getting heavy now and his fingers are stained from the work but there are still so many left to kill. His biggest mistake is giving them names.”

“...The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled. It had stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and many wooden shoes. The hands of the man who sawed the wood, left red marks on the billets; and the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby, was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about her head again. Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth; and one tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine-lees—BLOOD.”

“Sometimes it seemed to him that his life was delicate as a dandelion. One little puff from any direction, and it was blown to bits.”

“Shay," she said. "Shay McKenna," as if trying out his name, saying it for the first time. "Did you ever love me, even a little?"Love you?" He turned his head and brushed his lips across her fingers. "I'm loving you now, mo chridh. After I'm dead, a thousand years from now, whatever's left of me, be it a soul or just a handful of dust, that will be loving you.”

“Ray's voice echoes in my head from one of his many self-defense lectures."It's the panic that's gonna kill you or get you seriously hurt, Annie.”

“I have a dress fitting to get to at three.' (Simon)'Cool,' said Kyle, slinging his messenger bag over his shoulder and heading for the door. 'Get them to make you something in red. It's totally your color.”