“I press my lips to the curve of her neck, just to prove I am strong, just to prove I can do it. But I can't. I'm going to bite.”

“Just a few feet behind them, I can't help thinking about a line from the battered Shakespeare in my bag: "A swan trooping among crows." Except in this case it's the opposite: I am a crow trooping after swans.”

“The clock is ticking. I should be leaving right now. But what I want to do is take Cicely in my arms and press her up against me hard enough to make her not care that I'm messing up her lipstick. I want to pick her up and carry her back through that doorway. We're only a few strides from the couch, only one rip away from ruining that expensive fabric, the dress she must have bought to wear for him.”

“It is an intensely beautiful world. More and more, I think of it as Cicely's world. More and more I wish it were my world, too. A minute ago, I hoped I wasn't bonding, but now, I almost hope I am. Because its either that or I'm falling in love.”

“I never really appreciated the self-contained miniature universe that is me. I fall in love with my breathing too late, fall in love with it just in time to lose it, walk into the show just in time for the fireworks grand finale.”

“Luke is not what you'd call a confident driver. In fact, he drives like someone's grandpa. "Luke," I say, "You have done this before, right? I mean, you do drive?" "Of course I drive!" He shoots me an indignant glare. "It's just that I learned in England. I'm used to driving on the other side of the road." "You pretty much are on the other side of the road.”

“My Mother always wants to know why I don't just take things down, but I like it the way it is - like layers of sediment in an archaeology dig, or overlapping scales of armor. My room is the safest place I know.”