“I think I'm going to cry, this is crazy.""No, you're just processing. Go ahead and cry.""I thought men got nervous around crying females.""I'm a Marine, remember? We're trained to handle anything.”

“Later we can go to dinner.”“I suppose that might work,” she said.She sounded so damn casual, he thought. As if the decision she had just made weren’t staggering in its implications. As if it weren’t going to alter destinies and change the fate of nations.”

“I love you, Desdemona.”“I know,” she whispered. “You don’t have to say the words.”He smiled slowly. “Trust me, you’re going to hear them every day for the rest of our lives.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” he said, “but I was under the impression that you weren’t looking for anything more than a short-term arrangement either, Miss Free Spirit.”She flushed. “I wasn’t the one who ran for the door that night. I was doing just fine with the summer-fling thing.”“I did not run for the door. I left in a hurry, but I did not run.”“Details.”“Important details. And I’d like to remind you that I showed at your gallery the next morning,” he said. “It’s not like I didn’t call. And how the hell do you think I felt when you told me that the sex had been therapeutic? You made it sound like a good massage or a tonic, damn it.”She bit her lip. “Well, it was in a way.”“Great. Well, do me a favor. The next time you want physical therapy, call a masseuse or a chiropractor. Or buy a vibrator.”

“Friends may come and go but enemies accumulate.”

“Readers understand that the books celebrate female power. In the romance novel, the woman always wins. With courage, intelligence and gentleness she brings the most dangerous creature on the earth, the human male, to his knees.”

“Believe in yourself and in your own voice, because there will be times in this business when you will be the only one who does. Take heart from the knowledge that an author with a strong voice will often have trouble at the start of his or her career because strong,distinctive voices sometimes make editors nervous. But in the end, only the strong survive.”