“I stared hard, trying to find a pattern. Thinking if I kept looking hard enough, maybe the pieces of the world would fit back together into something I could understand.”

“I was harder than Dante. I think I'd tried to hide that hardness from him because I'd wanted him to like me. But now he knew. That I was hard. And maybe that was okay. Maybe he could like the fact that I was hard just as I liked the fact that he wasn't hard.”

“Willow Mosby, when I look at you, all of the broken pieces fit back together.”

“I stared hard at the sheep, trying to see if I could view the movement of its blood through its skin, or sense the beating of its heart, or see the aura of its warmth glowing against the night. It stared back at me, looking resolutely like an ordinary sheep. I guess I wasn’t that sort of vampire. Or maybe sheep didn’t have auras.”

“I pull my lower lip all the way in between my teeth. If I try hard enough, maybe I can gobble my whole self this way.... I didn't try hard enough to swallow myself.”

“The truth is, I hoped the cure would dislike me. I tried to think of disagreeable things to say to him -- I could hit on nothing that wasn't charming. It's wonderful how hard I find it not to be fascinating.”