“I promised I'd save him, take him home! I promised him!" . . . Thomas hugged Chuck to his chest, squeezed him as tightly as possible, as if that could somehow bring him back, or show thanks for saving his life, for being his friend when no one else would.Thomas cried, wept like he'd never wept before. His great, racking sobs echoed through the chamber like the sounds of tortured pain. (pg 358 hardback)”

“I promised him!" he screamed, realizing even as he did so that his voice was laced with something wrong. Almost insanity. "I promised I'd save him, take him home! I promised him!”

“Maybe, if I were very, very, very lucky, I would somehow be able to save Edward. But I wasn't so stupid as to think that saving him would mean that I could stay with him. I was no different, no more special than I'd been before. There would be no new reason for him to want me now. Seeing him and losing him again . . .I fought back against the pain. This was the price I had to pay to save his life. I would pay it.”

“Sometimes when we were hiding behind the breakers with the crowd, he'd hold me so tight, I'd think he's not just holding me, he's holding onto me, like I'm stopping him from falling off. I'd see him looking at me and his eyes were so full of...I dunno. Like he was about to cry. And, it's stupid, I know, but I think maybe he's hurting because he loves me and I don't love him, and this great lump used to come up into my throat and I'd hold him tight and try and squeeze him as tight as I could and try as hard as I could to fall in love with him the way he loved me.And then other times I'd think, it's just the way his face is that makes him look like that.”

“They say that at the mountain pass he looked back at his kingdom, his beautiful kingdom, and wept, and his mother told him to weep like a woman for what he could not hold as a man.”

“You saved our lives, back there."He leaned his mouth a few inches from hers. "You want to show me your gratitude?"Ellie moved closer and rested her hands on the great expanse of Chance's broad chest. His mouth twitched in what might have been an unpracticed smile that shot straight through her like a ray of sunlight. She gave him the tight smile she saved for difficult guests, then whispered to him."Not if you were the last man in Texas.”