“The kiss itself is immortal. It travels from lip to lip, century to century, from age to age. Men and women garner these kisses, offer them to others and then die in turn.”

“The belle is a product of the Deep South, which is a product of the nineteenth century and the Age of Romanticism. Virginia is a product of the eighteenth century. It's impossible to extract a belle from the Age of Reason.”

“...all this time I've been worshiping you - when other men wanted to kiss you, I've been offering the praise of my lips...”

“Boy to his dying grampa: "I am a century wide. I think that I have my literal age but am surrounded in a radius of years. I think that these years of days, this near century of years, is a gift from you.”

“If all women revealed their age, men would have nothing to hide from each other.”

“Alexia had spent long hours wondering over that mustache. Werewolves did not grow hair, as they did not age. Where had it come from? Had he always had it? For how many centuries had his poor abused upper lip labored under the burden of such vegetation?”