“In all the medical dramas I’d ever seen, there was always some solution, some last-minute, miraculously undiscovered remedy. Nobody ever just gave up on a patient. But it seemed like in real life, they did.”

“The last thing he ever said to me was, 'Just always be waiting for me, and then some night you will hear me crowing.”

“Like a lightning bug... Like a lightning bug?... Yes, just like a night lightning bug; because there are day lightning bugs too - even if nobody has ever seen one, I know there are some, and I know the day lightning bugs are the cockroaches that since they can't light up, people kill them.”

“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.”

“The bathroom door opened and Griff emerged in a cloud of steam, the grand entrance of every B-movie alien I’d ever seen. Maybe this wasn’t Griff at all but some interstellar prankster setting me up. Forget about abductions, anal probes and secret alien cookbooks—the real fun was in poking at the Earthlings’ old heartaches.”

“Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bullfighters.”