“What you told me was that the love of beauty is like a sickness, as all the devouring love inside a person. I stood there right in front of you and ate one of the crayons you had handed me. For when you love you do not care.”

“You wait up for me I don't wake up for you. Would you like the company or are you sick of me. When your love lets you go you only want love more. Even when love wasn't what you were looking forSpeak slow, tell me love where do we go.”

“What are you doing all the time? And why do you say nothing? You are evil, you know, and sometimes when you smiled at me I hated you. I wanted to strike you. I wanted to make you bleed. You smiled at me the way you smiled at everyone, you told me what you told everyone— and you tell nothing but lies. What are you always hiding? And do you think I did not know when you made love to me, you were making love to no one? No one! Or everyone—but not me, certainly. I am nothing to you, nothing, and you bring me fever but no delight.”

“That is the kind of beauty I was trying to get you to see,” Orolo told me. “Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you will have no defense against the ugliness that will hem you in and come at you in so many ways.”

“You was the onlyest person that looked past my skin and past my meanness and saw that there was somebody on the inside worth savin...We all has more in common than we think. You stood up with courage and faced me when I was dangerous, and it changed my life. You loved me for who I was on the inside, the person God meant for me to be, the one that had just gotten lost for a while on some ugly roads in life.”

“Excuse me? You're the one who was out to mislead me with your alluring bimbo slinkiness! What if I had believed your act last night? What if I had fallen deeply and madly in love with you? You would have had the blood of my love-sickness on your hands, Leila Folger.”