“It was hard to know what was worse: him being with her and all her sisters, or him being with none of them because his heart was held by another.-Cormia”

“But in the night he woke and held her tight as though she were all of life and it was being taken from him. He held her feeling she was all of life there was and it was true.”

“In her life, she'd been nourished and sustained by certain things, him being one of them, Trudy another, and Edgar, the third and most important, but it was really the three of them together, intersecting in her, for each of them powered her heart in a different way.”

“Listen, Cormia, I need you to know something."As she looked down at him, his eyes were the most amazing thing she'd ever seen, hypnotic, the color of citrines in firelight. "Yes?""I love you."Her heart clenched. "What?""I love you." He shook his head and eased back so he was sitting cross-legged. "Oh, Christ... I've made such a mess out of everything. But I love you. I wanted you to know it because... Well, shit, because it matters, and because it means I can't be with other Chosen. I can't be with them, Cormia. It's you or it's nobody.”

“She was incapable of dragging herself away from him; Even though talking over the situation with him had shattered her, being without him would have been even worse,as if it were only his presence that was stopping the pieces flying away in all directions.”

“She wanted him to see all of her and also none of her. She wanted him to be dazzled by the bits and blinded by the whole. She wanted him to see her whole and not in pieces. She had hopes that were hard to satisfy.”