“Every artist joins a conversation that's been going on for generations, even millennia, before he or she joins the scene.”

“He’d never be able to touch her, and as passionate as she was, she would eventually need a man who could. He’d never had to worry about these things before because he’d never been with a woman. Not even before his possession. He’d been too busy then, too involved in his job. Maybe he needed to join Workaholics Anonymous, he thought dryly. He had to be the only millennia-old virgin in history.”

“Why write stories? To join the conversation.”

“She was not often invited to join in the conversation of the others, nor did she desire it. Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.”

“As he slept, his heartbeat returned to slow and steady, lulling her. Before she joined him, she decided that she never wanted to sleep without that sound again.”

“And every time she hears from him, another pebble of hope joins the little cluster she has collected.”