“You string some letters together, and you make a word. You string some words together, and you make a sentence, then a paragraph, then a chapter. Words have power.”

“Words have power? That sounds like you're into some Harry Potter juju.”

“I’m not your father, you know.”It took me a moment to find words. “Excuse me?”“I’m capable of giving you a compliment and being completely sincere about it.”

“It is an apology,” he said, “for not believing in you . . . or in us. Yesterday, I thought I’d lost you, and then we fought together,” he said. “I pushed you away for fear of what our relationship would do, could do, to this House. And then we protected this House together. That is the true measure of what we could do.”

“Do you like being teased?" I whispered."I enjoy previews," he said, the words confident, but his voice rough with arousal. -Merit and Ethan”

“You undo me, Merit. Wholly and completely. You don't take me at my word. You challenge me at every opportunity. And that means when I'm with you, I am less than the head of this House...and I am more than the head of this House. I am a man." He stroked my cheeks with his thumbs. "In my very, very long life, I need you more than I have ever needed anything.”

“The world isn’t perfect, and some days it wears you down. You can either accept that, and face it, and be a help to others instead of a hindrance. Or you can decide the rules are too tough and they shouldn’t apply to you, and you can ignore them and make things harder for everybody else. Sometimes life is about being sad and doing things anyway. Sometimes it’s about being hurt and doing things anyway. The point isn’t perfection. The point is doing it anyway.”