“Quit that." Lisa jabbed an elbow at my ribs."Quit what?""Quit looking at him like that," she warned in a hushed tone. "I'm not kidding, Amelie. He's dangerous. He boils kittens in ritual sacrifice."Katie wrinkled her nose. "He does not, Lisa.""You don't know that.”

“You see?" Damien leaned over his desk and spread out half a dozen charcoal sketches. "These are only quick studies of course. But my agent in Florence tells me this artist, Leonardo, is a master and also quite an inventor of mechanical devices--which, as you know, are my passion. Leonardo just completed a portrait of Lisa de Giocondo. He calls it the Mona Lisa. I thought I might commission him to do a portrait of me, and while he's here, I can pick his mind for mechanical secrets. How does that sound?""Expensive," Gideon murmured.”

“He's charmed by her as if she were some fairy!" continued Arabella. "See how he looks round at her, and lets his eyes rest on her. I am inclined to think that she don't care for him quite so much as he does for her. She's not a particular warm-hearted creature to my thinking, though she cares for him pretty middling much-- as much as she's able to; and he could make her heart ache a bit if he liked to try--which he's too simple to do.”

“This isn't good.""What isn't good?" Kelon asked Donovan, coming into the kitchen. He nodded to Lisa standing in front of the stove. She flinched, blushed and then glared at him. He cocked an eyebrow at Donovan. He shrugged. "She's mad because I won't discipline her." Lisa snorted and stirred the pot of oatmeal on the stove. "Oh please. Like I couldn't get a spanking if I wanted one.”

“He asked her out and she told him she wouldnt go out with a man that drank. He looked her straight in the eye and told her he didnt drink. She like to fell over backwards. I guess it come as somethin of a shock to her to meet a even bigger liear than what she was. But he told the naked truth. Of course she called hishand on it. Said she knew for a fact he drank. Said everbody in Jeff Davis County knew he drank and drank plenty and was wild as a buck. He never batted a eye. Said he used to but he quit. She asked him when did he quit and he said I just now did. And she went out with him. And as far as I know he never took another drink. Till she quit him of course. By then he had a lot of catchin up to do. Tell me about the evils of liquor. Liquor aint nothin. But he was changed from that day.”

“Quit? You kidding? My life sucks when I'm only half-aware of it. If I quit drinking and saw what it's really like, I'd probably jump off a bridge.”