“Is it also true that you drank to excess?” Isobel asked, flipping to the next index card.Poe scoffed at the question, his response simply “Nyeh.”Varen’s head snapped so quickly toward her father that Isobel was surprised the sunglasses hadn’t flown off.“Well, sometimes,” Poe corrected himself. Shifting, he stooped in his seat.Varen’s stare remained.“Often,” Poe growled, angling away, pulling his already tight jacket around himself even tighter.”

“Isobel watched as Varen’s head turned slowly toward her father. She couldn’t exactly tell with the sunglasses, but she somehow knew that he had to be staring down the false Poe with one of his most penetrating “you are the essence of lameness” expressions.”

“So." [Isobel] cleared her throat. "What are we doing?""We," [Varen] said at last, "are doing a project on Poe.""Didn't he marry his cousin or something?""The man is a literary god and that's all you have to say?”

“His eyes remained on Isobel as he began a slow backward walk. He was doing it again, speaking to her with his eyes. She remained trapped in his stare, trying to hear him, to read the underlying message. Finally his gaze broke from hers and he turned away, walking off through the cafeteria doors.There was a pause before Gwen spoke. "Let me guess," she said. "Right now, you're trying to decide if that was hot or annoying." She paused, as though formulating her own opinion.... "It was so totally hot.”

“Piney woke up wearing a big grin on his face. He couldn’t remember when he’d slept so well. He pulled the pillow next to him up over his face. He could smell her hair on it.“Jesse,” he murmured to himself. He liked her. He really liked her. And he loved, loved, loved doing her.Being inside her. She was so hot. She was so tight. She was…Piney stopped himself in midthought and rolled out of bed. His mind was headed where his body could not go.”

“Skyler often thought that the Seneca quotation Poe included was a dig at Dupin-or perhaps Poe himself: Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio. "Nothing is more hateful to wisdom than excessive cleverness." "That's for sure," said Skyler aloud. "Or more succintly put, 'No one likes a smart ass'.”