“We would lie on coral sand, below sugary stars, watching Cassiopeia mount her throne and the Great Bear wash its paws in the South. I would say, "I have a secret to tell you." And, folding me in your arms, boyish and sly, you would answer: "Whisper it into my mouth. ”

“You two would make a cute couple,” she says as she passes by with a full dough tray in her arms. I don’t know why she says it. We aren’t doing anything but folding boxes with the other drivers and telling dirty jokes.But we would.We would make a cute couple.”

“If you were M. Pujol, Madeleine says, I would reach out my hand to you. Like this.If you were M. Pujol, Adrien says, I would press my mouth against your pulse. Like this. If you were he, she says, I would cup your chin in my fingers.If you were he, he says, I would take those fingers into my mouth.Then my mouth would envy my fingers, she says.Then your mouth must usurp your fingers, he says.And then, she says, I would do this.”

“Marco, honey, I'm gonna have to wreck your fantasy and tell that not only are Joss and I not involved with each other, and not only are we both straight-which you'd think any straight guy would realize-but I would do her and half the guys at this table before I would even let you watch me change my shoes"Eric opened his mouth to say something but Kat immediately cut him off "No, Eric. You're in the other half”

“This time as we ascend, I watch the world sinking below us. I watch the way the city fades into sand that gets washed by the ocean.”

“I wish you would tell me your secret. To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.”