“The man was a lunatic who somehow could tap into sanity when he looked her in the eye. What did that man make her? A human straightjacket?”

“A man who kisses his wife when he goes into a clinch with her, should look deeply into her eyes also.”

“Hugh was a man who could stroke magic from a guitar as fluidly as he did from her body. A man who tenderly held a child when doing so exposed old grief.”

“There is nothing so inspiring to a woman as seeing love in a man's eyes when he looks at her.”

“She deserved a man who could offer her the best of everything, not a lifetime of butcher's leftovers got on the cheap and a drop of condensed milk in her tea when they couldn't stretch to sugar. Jimmy was working hard to become that man, and as soon as he did, by God, he was going to marry her and never let her go.”

“‎When she looked up at him, it was suddenly easy for her to imagine that her fears were pointless. That he would love her no matter what she told him, and that he was the kind of man who loved her already and would love her forever.”