“I don't really like this song," Emma had said."You told me it was your favourite.""It's beautiful. But it always makes me sad.""Why, love?" he'd asked gently. "It's about finding each other again. About someone coming home."Emma had lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him earnestly. "It's about losing someone, and having to wait until you're together in heaven.""There's nothing in the lyrics about heaven," he'd said."But that's what it means. I can't bear the idea of being separated from you, for a lifetime or a year or even a day. So you mustn't go to heaven without me.""Of course not," he had whispered. "It wouldn't be heaven without you.”

“Did you fall in love with her?""I care about her. A lot.""You're not supposed to marry someone if you don't fall in love with her.""Well, love is a choice, too."Holly shook her head. "I think it's something that happens to you."Mark smiled into her small, earnest face. "Maybe it's both," he said, and tucked her in.”

“I hate you for all the years I 'll have to live without you. How can a heart hurt this much and still go on beating? How can I feel this bad without dying from it?I 've bruised my knees with praying to have you back. None of my prayers have been answered. I tried to send them up to heaven but they 're trapped here on earth, like bobwhites beneath the snow. I try to sleep and it's like I 'm suffocating.Where have you gone?Once you said that if I wasn't with you, it wouldn't be heaven.I can't let go of you. Come back and haunt me. Come back.”

“You've always asked me to wait, as if we had time in abundance. But time is too precious, Perry. We've wasted years, when we could have been with each other. Don't you understand how much even one day of loving each other is worth? Some people are separated by distances they can never cross. All they can do is dream about each other for a lifetime, never having what they want most. How foolish, how wasteful to have love within your reach and not take it!" She clamped her teeth on her trembling bottom lip to steady herself”

“What if you could meet your soul mate?" the ghost asked. "You 'd want to avoid that?""Hell, yes. The idea that there's one soul out there, waiting to merge with mine like some data-sharing program, depresses the hell out of me.""It's not like that. It's not about losing yourself.""Then what is it?" Alex was only half listening, still occupied with the viselike tightness of his chest."It's like your whole life you 've been falling toward the earth, until the moment someone catches you. And you realise that somehow you 've caught her at the same time. And together, instead of falling, you might be able to fly.”

“I have nothing to offer you," he finally said in a guttural voice."Nothing."Win's lips had turned dry. She moistened them, and tried to speak through a thrill of anxious trembling. "You have yourself," she whispered."You don't know me. You think you do, but you don't. The things I've done, the things I'm capable of--you and your family, all you know of life comes from books. If you understood anything--""Make me understand. Tell me what is so terrible that you must keep pushing me away."He shook his head."Then stop torturing the both of us," she said unsteadily. "Leave me, or let me go.""I can't," he snapped. "I can't, damn you." And before she could make a sound, he kissed her.”

“I'll follow you to the next life if I have to," he whispered harshly in her ear. "You'll never be free of me. I'll chase you through heaven and hell and beyond." He continued to whisper without stopping while his hands gripped her body close to his. "You stay with me, Holly," he muttered savagely. "Don't do this to me. You stay, damn you.”