“Love is like that: insistent, sure, persuasive. It silences easily all whispers of misgiving.”

“Life'd be a lot easier if it were like a fairy tale," said Cassandra, "if people belonged to stock character types.""Oh, but people do, they only think they don't. Even the person who insists such things don't exist is a cliché: the dreary pedant who insists on his own uniqueness!”

“Darling girl, blinded by foolish thoughts of love. How to tell her that the hearts of men were not so easily won. If won, rarely kept.”

“Rose sighed softly, in a way that seemed to signal a close to the conversation. "I love him, Mamma."Adeline closed her eyes. Youth! What chance had the most reasonable arguments against the arrogant power of those three words? That her daughter, her precious prize, should utter them so easily, and about such a one as he! "And he loves me, Mamma, he told me so."Adeline's heart tightened with fear. Darling girl, blinded by foolish thoughts of love. How to tell her that the hearts of men were not so easily won. If won, rarely kept."You'll see," Rose said. "I shall live happily ever after.”

“It was unsettling, Laurel thought, suppressing a shiver, how quickly a person's presence could be erased, how easily civilization gave way to wilderness.”

“Love affairs, in their beginnings, are all about the present. But there is a point in each--an event, an exchange, some other unseen trigger--which forces the past and the future back into focus.”

“All very well for a dull sort of girl to hitch her wheel to a man's wagon, but consider yourself warned, men enjoy a bit of sport, and they all like to catch the brightest prize, but once they do? That's when the fun and games end. His games, her fun.”