“He was still thoughtful. 'Do you think any of us ever really knows anyone?' 'Philosophy, Lord Dryden? And yet it's daylight and everyone is still sober.”

“Oh, my goodness, Lord Dryden. You should have seen your face when you said the word work. It’s not counted among the deadly sins, you know.”

“Tell me—what wouldn’t you do for Violet, Captain Flint?”Flint didn’t yet know the answer to this. Though he was perhaps closer to knowing.“I haven’t yet been tested.”Lyon smiled slowly at this, and shook his head. “Ah. Clearly you haven’t a soul of a poet, then, sir. You cannot be lured into hyperbole: ‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t do! Nothing!’ And etcetera. I can. I like hyperbole. Don’t fear it, Flint! Believe me, there’s some truth to all the purple words that surround love, you know. When you love someone more than life—and it is indeed possible to love someone more than life, or otherwise poets wouldn’t have gone on and on about it over the centuries—and you know, you know, you were born for only one person…imagine you cannot have them without tearing everything else you know asunder. Without hurting and disappointing all the other people you love. What then would you do?”

“How had she ever thought his blue eyes placid as a lake? But there was untold power in any water: to buoy, to drown, to toss, to carry one to the safety of shore.”

“I know what you think of me, Miles. I know what you--have thought of me. But I have a heart. I do have a heart. I just cannot afford to use it. Don't you see? Why can't you see this? Whereas you--may play at all of this as much as you like. There will always be someone for you. And that is the difference. I cannot afford to use my heart. And you--you choose not to use yours.' - Cynthia Brightley to Miles Redmond”

“Lyon Redmond was either a man on a pilgrimage in search of salvation, or a man out to burn on the pyre of his own love for a woman.Regardless, he still suffered.”

“A proper kiss, Miss Eversea, should turn you inside out. It should . . . touch places in you that you didn’t know existed, set them ablaze, until your entire being is hungry and wild...It should slice right down through you like a cutlass with a pleasure so devastating it’s very nearly pain … It should make you want to do things you’d never dreamed you’d want to do, and in that moment all of those things will make perfect sense. And it should herald, or at least promise, the most intense physical pleasure you’ve ever known, regardless of whether that promise is ever, ever fulfilled. It should, in fact . . . ” he paused for effect “ . . . haunt you for the rest of your life.”