“God, you have a beautiful laugh, and your smile. Jesus, it knocks the breath out of me.""You can't talk to me like that, nobody says things like that to a woman he just met. It's insane.""I just did. And I plan to keep saying them until you believe every word.”

“No' is a magical word," he told her. "Here's how it goes. You say, 'Simon, I have an insane, suicidal plan. Would you like to help me carry it out?' And I say, "Why, no.”

“He loves me.""You sound surprised.""Nobody ever did. Not like this. It's easy to say, for some people. The words. But it's not just words with Roarke. He sees inside me, and it doesn't matter.”

“I have cried even when the laugh did choke me. But no more think that I am all sorry when I cry, for the laugh he come just the same. Keep it always with you that laughter who knock at your door and say, ‘May I come in?’ is not true laughter. No! He is a king, and he come when and how he like. He ask no person, he choose no time of suitability. He say, ‘I am here.”

“Having you in my life is so comforting, because it's like you feel and say all the same things I always did, but hearing you say them somehow confirms them for me, the way it's impossible to feel the same pleasure from running your own fingers through your own hair. What I'm trying to say is, you just can't tickle yourself.”

“You want me to have feelings?" he said. "I already told you that I love you. What else should I say? That I long to be near you every second of every day? I see colors, only around you....I smell perfume, only around you. God, it's like...like I'm alive again. Sometimes I go crazy just wondering if I imagined it all, and I wait to see when it...you...will be taken away from me.""I feel all these things, Abbey," he continued on. "Rage that I can't run my fingers through your hair. Sorrow that I can't lay my face next to yours. Agony that I can't steal the breath from your lips. I can't eat or breathe or sleep for wanting to touch you, and yet I don't eat or breathe or sleep. I'm just here. Stuck in between.”