“I stood there. Still. Frozen. Looking at the most handsome man I’d ever seen in my life. The man I fell in love with when he was still mostly a boy. The man who raised two great kids against the odds. The man who kept the streets of my hometown safe. The only man outside my brother and father who even tried to take care of me, he did it in a way that was beautiful, precious, so I let him. The man who made me happy. The man who was happy being with me.”

“Someone killed my Mother and my Father and my Sister?""Yes, someone did.""A Man?""A Man.""Which means," said Bod, "you're asking the wrong question."Silas raised an eyebrow. "How so?""Well," said Bod. "If I go outside in the world, the question isn't who will keep me safe from him?""No?""No. It's who will keep him safe from me?”

“The List.The love spell...A man with a sense of loyalty.A man with a sense of family.A man who is a good lover.A man who can be my friend.A man who can challenge me.A man I can confess my secrets to.A man I can trust.A man with confidence.A man with an open heart.A man who will fight for me.A man who can love me exactly as I am.”

“I hate a stupid man who can't talk to me, and I hate a clever man who talks me down. I don’t like a man who is too lazy to make any effort to shine; but I particularly dislike the man who is always striving for effect. I abominate a humble man, but yet I love to perceive that a man acknowledges the superiority of my sex, and youth and all that kind of thing. . . A man who would tell me that I am pretty, unless he is over seventy, ought to be kicked out of the room. But a man who can't show me that he thinks me so without saying a word about it, is a lout.”

“Suddenly I realize that this is what I've been waiting for - a man who depends entirely on me... I dreamed for years of a man who couldn't live without me, a man who pictured my face when he closed his eyes, who loved me when I was a mess in the morning and when dinner was late and even when I overloaded the washing machine and burned out the motor. [My son] stares up at me as if I can do no wrong. I have always wanted someone who treats me the way he does; I just didn't know that I'd have to give birth to him.”

“I saw my father as a man, and not, as a man who was my father.”