“That was the heart of the difference, she thought. In her world she had learned to be . Other people seemed to gain their sense of identity and worth from doing. ”

“Learning became her. She loved the smell of the book from the shelves, the type on the pages, the sense that the world was an infinite but knowable place. Every fact she learned seemed to open another question, and for every question there was another book.”

“She hated this place. Nothing made sense. Nothing worked as it was supposed to. She was supposed to be learning things as she went along, gaining strength for her final battle. All she was doing was losing things, one thing at a time.”

“She wanted to write about something other then love. Yet her freethinking pen seemed more adhered to her heart then to her head. A battle she never felt worth fighting.”

“This man was different from all others; he was forbidden fruit, the outsider. Her mother had trained her well, but she had never told her what to do if a man set her heart to throbbing like the hooves of a runaway horse.”

“Somehow, some way, she had to be alive. A world without her carefree laughter didn't seem worth living in. A world that couldn't see her lovely smile wasn't worth saving.”