“It seemed to him that the little Manchu had never looked so radiant. She gave him a most charming smile, but her eyes were all for the boy.”

“Finally, his eyes locked on hers, and she gave him a huge, teary-eyed smile. She couldn’t tell if he counted because his lips were stretched around the appliance that had kept him breathing. Be in there, Blake. Please. Please, God.”

“When she looked at him now, she couldn't help thinking that the man he had become bore so little resemblance to the boy he had been. His smile was the only piece of baggage he had carried with him from boyhood into manhood.”

“Because -' she looked up at Bill and gave him a smile that lit up her face, granting him a sudden flash of her true beauty - 'love never die, Mister Bill. It never die.”

“She looked at him and realized that she loved him, out of nowhere, pure and simple. She loved him: this boy who fit so naturally in the water, the wild, and in everything else. She loved him: this boy who seemed to grow up out of the ground itself. There was a part of her that had known this from the first time she had seen him. This was what love was: a landslide in your heart.”

“There was a certain history to this. While heavily pregnant with Amelia, she had asked him if she was radiant or if she just looked like a waddling duck. He told her she’d looked like a radiant duck. This had not been the correct answer.”