“She was careful with her apple tree. She did not ask too much of it.”

“Maybe Laney's right. Maybe June did love me. But I'm far less certain that she knew I loved her. Did she realise how much I needed her around? It's not like I ever told her. I was too wrapped up in my own world to notice what was going on in hers. Even if she did know, it wasn't enough to count. It wasn't enough to make her stay. So really, what did it matter, in the end?The bottom line is, it's my fault. I didn't love her enough. I didn't do enough. I wasn't enough. There's no excuse. There is nothing that will ever make that okay.”

“She bent forward to look, then gave a startled little cry and drew back. There was indeed a seed lying in the palm of his hand, but it was shaped exactly like a long, sharply-pointed thorn… ‘The seed looks very sharp,’ she said shrinkingly. ’Won’t it hurt if you put it into my heart?’He answered gently, ‘It is so sharp that it slips in very quickly. But, Much-Afraid, I have already warned you that Love and Pain go together, for a time at least. If you would know Love, you must know pain too.’Much-Afraid looked at the thorn and shrank from it. Then she looked at the Shepherd’s face and repeated his words to herself. ’When the seed of Love in your heart is ready to bloom, you will be loved in return,’ and a strange new courage entered her. She suddenly stepped forward, bared her heart, and said, ‘Please plant the seed here in my heart.’His face lit up with a glad smile and he said with a note of joy in his voice, ‘Now you will be able to go with me to the High Places and be a citizen in the Kingdom of my Father.’Then he pressed the thorn into her heart. It was true, just as he had said, it did cause a piercing pain, but it slipped in quickly and then, suddenly, a sweetness she had never felt or imagined before tingled through her. It was bittersweet, but the sweetness was the stronger. She thought of the Shepherd’s words, ‘It is so happy to love,’ and her pale, sallow cheeks suddenly glowed pink and her eyes shown. For a moment Much-Afraid did not look afraid at all.”

“I crushed him to me and was hit with a feeling so incredibly strong that, for a moment, I couldn't breathe. There were aspects of it that I recognized easily - attraction, lust, but there were subtler aspects as well and they weren't as readily identifiable - companionship, longing and comfort. The only way I could describe that undercurrent of emotion, strangely, was ... home.”

“His younger brothers, Allen and Anthony, hadn’t come downstairs yet. Aaron, Allen, and Anthony—their straight As, as his parents had joked before their first A became an F.”

“I guess at some point we fell in love, whatever that means. What the fuck is love anyway? Is it mutual dependance; two bipolar opposites bringing their failings together, making a comprehensive hole? Is it needing someone around all the time, just to feel like yourself? Is it a form of madness— all those cells & neurons giggling like moon-happy coyotes? Is it missing someone, feeling a physical craving for them, even when they are lying right next to you? Yes, I guess we fell in love.”

“One of the great diseases of this age is the multitude of books that doth so overcharge the world that it is not able to digest the abundance of idle matter that is every day hatched and brought into the world.”