“If she would just let herself go I would be there to catch her if she fell but she wasn't ready to take that step yet."Ethan Sterling in Private Emotions”

“Mom, I promised to behave. It wasn't easy. I mean, she couldn't help herself. She was all over this hunk of Navajo manhood and I had to keep telling her I'd promised not to let her violate me. Eventually she wore herself out and fell asleep.”

“Katie let the curtain fall back into place. Standing before the window, she felt herself let go of the old world and embrace the new. She would survive this. She would go on. That was all there was to it. She wouldn't give up without a fight. She would do whatever it took to survive.”

“She fell, she hurt, she felt. She lived. And for all the tumble of her experiences, she still had hope. Maybe this next time would do the trick. Or maybe not. But unless you stepped into the game, you would never know.”

“And now she was back in the world, not one she could make, but the one that had made her, and she felt herself shrinking under the early evening sky. She was weary of being outdoors, but she was not ready to go in. Was that really all there was in life, indoors or out? Wasn't there somewhere else for people to go?”

“... hoping that if she just walked down the same street fate would whirl her backward in time until she was once more (fill in your age), when the future was something she had not yet stepped into, when it was just an idea, a moment, something that had not disappointed her yet.”