“He saw Kathleen sitting in the middle of a long white table alone.Immediately things changed. As he walked toward her the people shrank back against the walls till they were only murals; the white table lengthened and became an altar where the priestess sat alone. Vitality welled up in him and he could have stood a long time across the table from her, looking and smiling.”

“That night, Gregory dreamt of his mother. It was a dream that he'd have carried to his therapist like a raw, precious egg if he'd had a therapist, and the dream made him wish he had one. In the dream, he sat in the kitchen of his mother's house at the table on his usual place. He could hear her handle pots and pans and sigh occasionally. Sitting there filled his heart with sadness and also with a long missed feeling of comfort until he realised that the chair and the table were much too small for him: it was a child's chair and he could barely fit his long legs under the table. He was worried that his mother might scold him for being so large and for not wearing pants. Gregory, in the dream, felt his manhood press against his belly while he was crouching uncomfortably, not daring to move.”

“Before you know it, you'll be smiling at her across the breakfast table.""I don't smile," Cahill said, though he was having to fight his amusement."So you'll be scowling at her across the breakfast table. That isn't my point.”

“after Mother died I could look at a photograph of her till kingdom come, but it never game me back what it was to sit across the kitchen table from her flesh and bones, never gave me back the feeling, you know. The inside of the feeling.”

“By the time he climaxed, Eve was arched and her hair touched the floor. Her face was as far away from his as it could get while still having him inside her.They panted like this for a moment, until he realized she was too ashamed to sit back up and look at him. He’d just been at the center of her loss. He’d poisoned the only place she’d ever held her baby. Beckett looked at her long, white form. He ran his hand over a fine white scar he found just under her belly button—the scar somehow he had put on her body.”

“He slid his stele across the table toward her. "Use it." "No," Clary said, and pushed the stele back across the table at him. Jace slammed his hand down on the stele. "Clary-" "She said she doesn't want it," said Simon. "Ha-ha." "Ha-ha?" Jace looked incredulous. "THAT'S your comeback?”