“So it was that she knew she liked him, loved him as they said in the soppy English books, you were shamed and a fool to say that in Scotland.”

“And, like a fool, she kissed him back. Kissed him a way that would leave no doubt about the way she felt about him. Kissed him because she knew the chances were slim she'd have very many kisses like that in her lifetime. Which is a sad thing when you're only seventeen.”

“And it was no shame to her that she so dreamed. It was no shame that she called before her, one by one, those who had asked her to cross with them the threshold (of marriage) and those who might still ask her. It was no shame that, while her heart said always, "no," she still waited - waited for one whom she knew not, but only knew that she would know him when he came. And it was no shame to her that, even while this was so, she saw herself in the years to come a wife and mother. ”

“The Librarian was not familiar with love, which had always struck him as a bit ethereal and soppy, but kindness, on the other hand, was practical. You knew where you were with kindness, especially if you were holding a pie it had just given you.”

“She wanted him to tell her that when you love someone so hard and so fierce, it was all right to do things that you knew were wrong.”

“She looked at him with loathing. "I knew you were crazy," she said. "But I didn't realize you were absolutely, spectactularly out of your goddamned mind.”