“So many more cycles of elation of the first kiss, and devastation when it's over.”

“Give me a kiss, and to that kiss a score; then to that twenty, add a hundred more; a thousand to that hundred: so kiss on, to make that thousand up a million. treble that million, and when that is done, let's kiss afresh, as when we first begun!”

“Mourning your first love is as important as meeting your first love. It's the whole cycle.”

“He steps forward and kisses my forehead. His breath is soft, devastating warmth on my face. He turns and leaves. He chooses survival over me. It's no different than what I have done. We are both just trying so hard to survive me.”

“It's striking that Native Americans evolved no devastating epidemic diseases to give to Europeans in return for the many devastating epidemic diseases that Indians received from the Old World.”

“I turned to him and kissed him, slowly lingeringly, my hands running over the hard, smooth curves and angles of his body. It wasn't that first kiss so many months before. This one was big and complicated and full of colours and textures. It held stories in it, and memories, and that made it even better.”