“Simple and predictable seem pretty darn tantalizing when you’re a witch.Lately, I’ve wished for a lot of things to be the way they were. Gone are my lustfor the macabre and the sweetly sinful fantasies of meeting a vampire. Somethingabout unconscious people slumped against the dark leather of the booths atcrimson made it less sexy.”

“In the fantasy I spun for myself that night before falling asleep, those deep dark secrets were revealed. That simple touch became a violent embrace, worthy of any bodice-ripper. There were a certain number of gleeful perversions committed on Ivan's battered leather sofa. And at some point in the fantasy, Ivan was a vampire, because I was sort of weird that way. He was a real, Gothic-style, Bram Stoker sort of vampire who bit people as a metaphor for having dubious-consent, alpha-male sex with them, I should point out. None of your modern, sensitive vampires for me. I appreciated the classics.”

“MEG (to Dante, the vampire):“Vampires aren’t as cool as I expected them to be. In romance novels, vampires are all dark and broody and sexy. In real life, you talk an awful lot about stocks.”

“You kids are handling this a whole lot better than he is.’I wondered if that meant we were pretty darned tough.Or whether we simply lacked the imagination to see how bad things really were”

“You’re a lot of things, Nell Hawthorne. You’re complex. You’re cute. You’re lovely. You’re funny. You’re strong. You’re beautiful.” She seems to be struggling with words and emotions. I keep going. “You’re tortured. You’re hurting. You’re amazing. You’re talented. You’re sexy as fuck.”

“People are stupid. Why are they so stupid? There is an algorithm for the way humans were designed: love and be loved. Follow it andyou’re happy. Fight against it and you’re not. It’s so simple, it’s hard to understand.”