“What did I expect, that you would wrap my rib cage with those enormous hands in which horses must be measured, lifting me overhead with the stern reproach that is every Western woman's sly delight, "You're too thin"?”

“I pull away, you pull me back, you grab my hand and wrap me around. What you did not know is—– my heart is my hand.”

“The power of a woman was different, he decided: sly, fearless, changeable as the moods of the sea, but he knew instinctively that that was the power against which his own would be measured.”

“[Babbington] "What did [the Doctor, Stephen] do to you, sir?"[Captain Aubrey] "Well, I am ashamed to say he took a pistol-ball out of the small of my back. It must have been when I turned to hail for more hands- thank God I did not. At the time I thought it was one of those vile horses that were capering about abaft the wheel.""Oh, sir, surely a horse would never have fired off a pistol?”

“I wrapped my hands around his ribs as he kissed me passionately. There were no cameras, no directors, no witnesses - just Ryan and I and our raw, unscripted emotions.”

“I will be thin and pure like a glass cup. Empty. Pure as light. Music. I move my hands over my body - my shoulders, my collarbone, my rib cage, my hip bones like part of an animal skull, my small thighs. In the mirror my face is pale and my eyes look bruised. My hair is pale and thin and the light comes through. I could be a lot younger than seventeen. I could be a child still, untouched.”