“The Travises who had survived were the most purely stubborn people on earth, the kind who relied on their backbones when their wishbones were broken.”

“I never get sick. Besides, I have this compulsion to take care of ailing Travises.""You would be the only one. We Travises are bad-tempered as hell when we're sick.""You're not all that nice when you're well either.”

“Anyone who had ever read a novel knew that governesses were supposed to be meek and downtrodden.”

“One glance and I knew exactly who and what he was. The classic alpha male, the kind who had spurred evolution forward about five million years ago by nailing every female in sight. They charmed, seduced, and behaved like bastards, and yet women were biologically incapable of resisting their magic DNA.”

“But when you started dating someone, you could never be sure what you were getting into. You had to give someone a chance to show you who he really was . . . and believe him when he did.”

“And although there were countless single dads who were raising daughters, no one could deny that there were milestones that a girl wanted a mother for.”

“Jack Travis was a novelty in my experience, an old-fashioned man's man. None of the boys I had gone to college with had been anything more than that, just boys trying to figure out who they were and what their place in the world was. Dane and his friends were sensitive, environmentally aware guys who rode bikes and had Facebook accounts. I couldn't imagine Jack Travis ever blogging or worrying about finding himself, and it was pretty certain that he didn't give a damn about whether or not his clothes were sustainably produced.”