“I can't catch her by copying her, I can't draw her with a borrowed stencil. She is all the things a lover should be and quite a few a lover should not. Pin her down? She's not a butterfly. I'm not a wrestler. She's not a target. I'm not a gun. Tell you what she is? She's not Lot no. 27 and I'm not one to brag.”

“Daphne," he said with controlled gentleness, "what is wrong?"She sat down opposite him and placed a hand on his cheek. "I'm so insensitive," she whispered. "I should have known. I should never have said anything.""Should have known what?" he ground out.Her hand fell away. "That you can't—that you couldn't—""Can't what?"She looked down at her lap, where her hands were attempting to wring each other to shreds. "Please don't make me say it," she said.'This," Simon muttered, "has got to be why men avoid marriage.”

“I want to tell her that I can't pull her down. I want to tell her that she has to let go of my hand in order to swim. I want to tell her that she must live her own life. But I sense she already knows that these options are open to her. And that she, too, has made her choice.”

“Telepathically, I tell her I'm sorry. I tell her I just can't confide in her right now, tell her the three feet between us feels like three light-years to me and I don't know how to bridge it.Telepathically, she tells me back that I'm breaking her broken heart.”

“She starts to roll down her sleeve, but Guy stops her. He holds her arm, looks at her cuts, traces the pattern of her razor marks with his hand."Don't, it's..."Willow stops speaking as he bends his head and kisses her scars.She knows she should tell him to stop, but she can't because she wants him to go on forever. She knows too that she will probably pay for this feeling with other less pleasurable ones, but still she can't bring herself to pull her arm away.”

“I can't do this to you,' he said, drawing back. Emily put her hand on his and pulled the gun to her temple. 'Then do it for me,' she said.”