“Slowly, desolately, the fist of what we'd done unclenched the clawed palm of what we'd become.”

“The strength and wildness and will that I found in him were more and better than all the truth and goodness in the world. I pledged myself to him as brother and friend no matter what he'd done and no matter what he was.”

“Nothing ever fits the palm so perfectly, or feels so right, or inspires so much protective instinct as the hand of a child”

“The best revenge, like the best sex, is performed slowly, and with the eyes open.”

“The touch was exactly what the touch of a lover's hand should be: familiar, yet exciting as a whispered promise. I felt an almost irresistible urge to take her hand and place it flat against my chest, near my heart. Maybe I should've done it. I know now that she would've laughed, if I'd done it, and she would've liked me for it. But strangers that we were then, we stood for five long seconds and held the stare, while all the parallel worlds, all the parallel lives that might've been, and never would be, whirled around us.”

“Civilization, after all, is defined by what we forbid, more than what we permit.”

“Men reveal what they think when they look away, and what they feel when they hesitate. With women, it's the other way around”