“His lap looked like it was already occupied--by a giant boner. It pressed against his pants like a circus tent pole. Elephants could fit under there. A lion tamer and some flying trapeze artists. A dancing bear, or five.”

“Look, I'd sat through just as many Hollywood movies as the next person. I'd seen Sleepless in Seattle, Titanic, Twilight, whatever. I knew the myth. But i didn't believe it. I knew it was made up, I knew none of it was even close to reality.”

“But damn it, if he could be nonchalant about a woman rubbing herself against his giant erection like it was a stripper’s pole, then so could she.”

“Pushing through some viney branches, she comes into a clearing andfinds a sight that makes her hush--and not just her voice but every part of her, like feeling silence in her deep guts...It's something she can feel in the back of her throat, her dislike of the scene--as though what she's looking upon is unholy, the conjunction of chaos and order in a forced fit where everything is stretched and bent in the wrong way like those baby legs.”

“Believe it or not, some of us have piercings and tattoos and dye our hair because we think it looks pretty, not for any deep sociological reason. This isn't an act of protest against cultural or social repression. It's not a grand, deliberately defiant gesture against capitalists or feminists or any other social group. It's not even the fashion equivalent to sticking two fingers up at the world. The boring truth of it, Gabriel, is that I don't dress like this to hurt my parents or draw attention to myself or make a statement. I just do it because I think it looks nice. Disappointed?”

“She thinks of James Grierson. His Kisses tasted like whiskey, and they landed right and true.”

“Could he possibly believe a purple tunic over a butler- yellow shirt and scarlet pants became him.”