“Bitterblue had never seen a man naked, and she was curious. She decided the universe owed her a few minutes, just a few, to satisfy her curiosity. So she went to him and knelt, which shut him up.”

“To tell the truth, this was one of the few cases in which she had not told him just what she was thinking. Usually, she let him know whatever thoughts happened to come to her, and indeed he never took it amiss if she let slip a word that might pain him, because when all was said and done that was the price one paid for sincerity.”

“She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams. Just something she grabbed up to drape her dreams over. In a way she turned her back upon the image where it lay and looked further. She had no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man, neither any glistening young fruit where the petals used to be. She found that she had a host of thoughts she had never expressed to him, and numerous emotions she had never let Jody know about. Things packed up and put away in parts of her heart where he could never find them. She was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen. She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.”

“She listened to silence. Except the birds. The waves. A few voices in the distance. She would not turn to him. He had to come to her. He HAD to come to her.”

“She could not admit but that he had remarkable qualities, sometimes she thought that there was even in him a strange and unattractive greatness; it was curious then that she could not love him, but loved still a man whose worthlessness was now so clear to her.”

“The fairy had flown over to the window and was peering curiously out at the alley. "Forget it. Stay here," said Dustfinger. "Please. Believe me, it's no place for you out there." She looked at him quizzically, then folded her wings and knelt on the windowsill. And there she stayed, as if she coudln't decide between the hot room and the strange freedom to be found outside.”