“Maman drops to her knees, grasps the hem of Monsieur LeBlanc’s greatcoat. “You cannot turn us out. My daughters, all three good girls, you would put them on the street?”

“You are my daughter. I would love you if you put out the sun.”

“Then Octavia drops to her knees, rubs the hem of a skirt against her cheek, and burst into tears. "It's been so long," she gasps, "since I've seen anything pretty.”

“You can put the girl in a relationship...," I began, putting my arm around her. "But you can't take the boy-crazy out of the girl," Cassie finished.”

“With any other girl I could probably pull out the classic guy fail-safe of walking over and wrapping my arms around her and letting her put her head on my shoulder. It’s cheap, but it works. Drew swears by it. But I’m afraid that in this particular instance it would result in one of two things: a string of innovative new expletives or her knee in my balls. My money’s on the knee.”

“One by one, she conjured all the boxes she'd been put into: The good girl box and the good Christian box...the mistress box...the bad daughter and fallen woman boxes...She saw with a painful blaze of clarity that every one of these boxes had been of her own making, either by consent or lack of resistance. She had no right to bitterness; she had put herself in them. And she would get herself out, she vowed. And once she was out, she'd never willingly climb into another box again.”