“Words are not the only way we communicate, you and I. They never were.”

“His smile faded a little, growing softer, more intimate, like the look he'd showed her in bed this morning. 'You haven't learned yet when to lie.' Slowly, as if the words were being dragged from him, he added: 'I confess, Nell, I hope you never learn.' She found herself staring at him. Unsteadying thought: there was something hot in his eyes that wasn't purely want. It was too tender, too ... affectionate.”

“I trust only you and the dark always to look at me so honestly.”

“There. That is the answer to this riddle. The promises I can make, and the one I can't. Gwen. I will never leave you willingly. Life is a risk, and so love is, as well. But I swear to God, you will not regret the gamble.”

“—that if she touched him right now, their flesh would recognize each other. The wildest thought: these scars, his and hers, would speak to each other, communicating intimacies that could not be unshared.”

“Some people were like that; they could not escape criticism, because they never quite managed to convince themselves of the role everyone believed they should fill.”

“He knew himself well enough to know his own faults. Impatient and judgmental and stubborn and often too quick to act: he would try never to crush her, never to overwhelm her or bend her to his will, but if she did not demand only the best from him, it would happen. It might happen. Possibly.”