“He wished he had feelings for Andi, wanted to be interested in her...But there were 10 quick reasons why he wasn't interested. The biggest: Bailey Flanigan. He could hear her laugh from across the room. He sighed, and it felt like it came from the basement of his soul.”

“Why do you want to ask her out?" I asked. "I mean, she's great. But are you just doing this to distract her from Micah and give her a safe alternative? Or do you, um, like her?""Of course he likes her," said Adrian, quick to defend Jill's honor.I had a feeling that there was really no good way for Lee to answer at this point. If he expressed interest in her, Adrian's bizarre chivalric instincts were going to kick in. If Lee wasn't interested, Adrian would no doubt demand to know why Lee didn't want to marry her then and there. It was one of those fascinating — but weird — quirks of Adrian's personality.”

“He had told her he would love her forever, but he could not stay with her. From that time on, she couldn't see his glow or hear his voice in her head. Could he still hear her? Was he even aware of her existence?”

“When he saw her, he wanted to be with her; when he was with her, he ached to touch her; when he touched even her hand, he wanted to embrace her. He wanted to feel her against him the way he had in the attic. He wanted to know the taste of her skin and the smell of her hair. He wanted to make her laugh. He wanted to sit and listen to her talk about books until his ears fell off. But all these were things he could not want, because they were things he could not have, and wanting what you could not have led to misery and madness.”

“He was always being told that writers never become famous or rich, but of course that was not why he wrote, he wrote simply because he felt he had interesting stories to tell that people might like to hear.”

“He wanted to hear her concerns and alleviate them, he wanted to hold her and kiss her and convince her that he would find a way to make their relationship work, no matter how hard that might be. He wanted to to make her hear his words: that he couldn't imagine a life without her,that his feelings for her were real. But most of all, he wanted to reassure himself that she felt the same way about him.”