“The real truth is that the war didn't have much to do with it except that it provided a perfect limbo in which two people who were too young and too related could start kissing without anything or anyone making us stop.”

“I was starting to think that except for the deli counters and five or ten thousand other total essentials, supermarkets were pretty much a waste of time.”

“I didn't seem to have that effect on anyone but it would have been a waste for both of us to be saints.”

“Now let's try to understand that falling into sexual and emotional thrall with an underage blood relative hadn't exactly been on my list of Things to Do while visiting England,but I was coming around to the belief that whether you liked it or not, Things Happen and once they start happening you pretty much just have to hold on for dear life and see where they drop you when they stop.”

“Every war has turning points and every person too.”

“Eventually everyone came out of the water and for hours and hours and hours we lay under the tree and talked and read and occasionally someone got up to throw a stick for the dogs and Piper played with Ding and made tiny woven wreaths of poppies and daisies to decorate his baby horns and Isaac whistled back and forth to a robin and Edmond just lay there smoking and telling me he loved me without saying anything out loud and if there ever was a more perfect day in the history of time it isn't one I've heard about.The sun waited to go down longer than usual that day so we kept putting off the moment we had to leave and the boys and dogs swam in the river again and eventually we all headed back practically in the dark, dog-tired and too happy to talk much.I guess there was a war going on somewhere in the world that night but it wasn't one that could touch us.”

“Things Happen and once they start happening you pretty much just to hold on for dear life and see where they drop you when they stop.”