“I hope you don’t mind my joining you,” said Leanne. I minded. After all, she’d tried to kill me. A girl in a novel would say it was hard to believe, but it wasn’t.”

“You don’t mind when he stares at you.” Cecil jerked his head toward Eldric. "He doesn’t stare,” I said. “He looks.”

“You mind your tongue!” “Oh, I do,” I said. “I sharpen it every evening on your name.”

“I don’t mind the disapproving ones so much. It’s the tolerant ones I can’t stand, the ones who smile at Rose, who speak to her ever so slowly and gently. They don’t realize how very intelligent Rose really is. They’re just terrifically pleased with themselves. Look at me! they all but shout. See how broad-minded I am! How wonderfully progressive, how fantastically twentieth century!”

“I should hate to be a regular girl with a sugar-plum voice. I should hate to have swan-like lashes, and a thick, sooty neck. I sound as though I’m joking, I know, but I should truly hate to be like Leanne, so charming and ordinary and stuffed with clichéd feelings. I’m glad I’m the ice maiden. Who wants to be crying over every stray dog? Not I. Scratch my surface and what do you see? More surface.”

“I don't like my shoes,' said Rose.'I'm wearing my shoes and you don't see me complain.''You only hear a person complain,' said Rose. 'Not see.'How has Rose lived for seventeen years and no one has killed her, not once?”

“You could write your way into happiness. It might not be the happiness you'd experience if Eldric pushed Leanne from a cliff, but there's a firefly glimmer in writing something that would please Rose.”