“She had told Kazan that she was bored with the roles she was playing because so many of them had been basically the same kind of empty-headed characterization. She wanted nothing ore than to challenge herself with more complex parts--and also wanted others to think of her as being more than a caricature....Anytime she had an opportunity to broaden her mind, she wanted to take advantage of it.”

“She had wanted more than she could have.She had wanted him, and more... she had wanted him to want her.In the name of something bigger than tradition, bolder than reputation, more important than a silly title.”

“And she didn’t want to escape. She wanted to be kissed in the sunlight by a gorgeous man. She just wanted some other man, not this complicated creature who had more secrets than she could even begin to imagine.But it didn’t matter what her brain wanted. Her body, her mouth, her soul wanted him, and she heard a quiet little sound of desire and knew that it had come from her.”

“She had told him that she loved him. He had known that, but hearing it in the traditional phrase had affected him in new and blinding ways.Ways that made him believe that he could do anything.Anything she needed or wanted him to do. Because her loving him meant so much more than him loving her.”

“She had always told herself that she did hti job because she wanted to help others; afterall, hadn't Maurice told her once that the most important question any individual could ask was, "How might I serve?" If her response to that question had been pure, surely she would have coninued with the calling to be a nurse.... But that role hadn't been quite enough for her. She would have missed the excitement, the thrill when she embarked on the work of collecting clues to support a case.”

“She had to reach. She had to want it more than she’d ever wanted anything. She had to grab like a drowning girl for every good thing that came her way and she had to swim like fuck away from every bad thing. She had to count the years and let them roll by, to grow up and then run as far as she could in the direction of her best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by her own desire to heal.”