“I swear," Nell said, walking faster, "you're looking at a life of hamburger and no yelling." She held the dachshund closer, and it sighed this time and put its head on her arm, and she stopped to look down intoits eyes. "Hello," she said, and SugarPie stared back, pathetic and wide-eyed in the glow from the streetlight, her eyelashes fluttering like a Southern belle confronted by a Yankee.”

“He looked like every glossy frat boy in every nerd movie ever made, like every popular town boy who’d ever looked right through her in high school, like every rotten rich kid who’d ever belonged where she hadn’t.My mama warned me about guys like you.He turned to her as if he’d heard her and took off his sunglasses, and she went down the steps to meet him, wiping her sweaty palms on her dust-smeared khaki shorts. “Hi, I’m Sophie Dempsey,” she said, flashing the Dempsey gotta-love-me grin as she held out her hot, grimy hand, and after a moment he took it.His hand was clean and cool and dry, and her heart pounded harder as she looked into his remote, gray eyes.“Hello, Sophie Dempsey,” her worst nightmare said. “Welcome to Temptation.”

“He picked up the biscuit box and said, "Come on, Marlene. Back into hiding in case somebody comes looking for you, although only God knows why anybody would.""Marlene?" Nell said."I'm not calling anything SugarPie," Riley said. "That's obscene.”

“- Teach me something new, she said, and he bent her back onto the bed and she shivered as his body slid against hers.- Okay, Phin said. But pay attention, Julie Ann, there'll be a quiz.”

“She slid out from under his arm, and picked up his shirt from the floor. When she put it on, it failed to meet in the middle over her chest. that always worked in the movies, she thought, disgusted, and dropped it on the floor.”

“Dead woman are not romantic,' Sophie said flatly.'Okay, she's not dead,' Phin said. 'The bear ate her, and she came her brains out.”

“Quinn talked with her entire body: arms, eyes, shoulders, mouth. She was performance art, so alive that sometimes he argued with her just so he could watch her flush and gesture.”