“One day, in a grocery store, I swept clean a shelf of microbrew beer for my husband and three giant jars of mustard, leaving none for future shoppers. It was victory tinged with guilt. What would the next expat shopper think, when looking for beer or mustard? I couldn't afford to think about them. Every man for himself, in modern China!”

“Always write angry letters to your enemies. Never mail them. James Fallows ”

“Used to be hewas my heart's desire.His forthright gaze,his expert hands:I'd lie on the couch with my eyesclosed just thinking about it.Never about the factthat everything changes,that even this,my best passion,would not be immune.No, I would bask on in aneternal daydream of the handsfinding me, the gaze like a windingstair coaxing me down. . . .Until I caught a glimpseof something in the mirror:silly girl in her lingerie,dancing with the furniture--a hot little bundle, flush withcliches. Into that pairof too-bright eyes I lookedand saw myself. And something else:he would never look that way.”

“Most of the time, I think of myself as being invisible. Not invisible like a ghost, but like a souvenir plate from last year's vacation. At first, everyone is excited about seeing the plate, but then it's put on the bookcase and only taken down when it needs cleaning. Soon, the little plate is viewed at being more trouble than it's worth.”

“My heart has often been too full to speak.' -Emma to husband Charles on her gratitude for 'the cheerful and affectionate looks you have given me when I know you have been miserably uncomfortable.”

“Were there any Pyr in DC other than the two of them?No! It couldn't be!Raffery spun again, but Thorolf was keeping a wary distance. "It's not your firestorm, is it?" Bitterness welled within Rafferty at the prospect.If Thorolf, who did not care at all for romance or love or long-term relationships, should have a firestorm before Rafferty, then the Great Wyvern truly had no place in Her heart for him, even after all these centuries."Me?" Thornolf looked as horrified by the prospect as Rafferty. "Wouldn't I be, like, the first to know?""Can't you feel it?" Rafferty couldn't keep the anger from his tone. If Thorolf was having a firestorm, it wouldn't be unreasonable that he, of all the Pyr, wouldn't have a clue. Rafferty had never met a Pyr so disinclined to use his abilities. "Someone is our vicinity is having one." He switched to old-speak. "Feel it!"Thorolf stared at Rafferty, then started to chuckle. "Dude, I can't feel anything except the pounding in my head. That's no firestorm--that's plain old beer. Lots of it. With vodka shooters.”

“I’ll tell them that I saw the guy who shot her, then.”The man arched a brow. “The one who turned into a dragon before your very eyes? Don’t you think a story like that might affect your credibility as a witness?”