“Contact would hurt, might be fatal, and yet she couldn’t stop herself. Obsession or compulsion, she didn’t know, but she did know that before this was over, she’d either end up in Dmitri’s bed . . . or one of them would bleed darkest red.”

“She would defend herself, saying that love, no matter what else it might be, was a natural talent. She would say: You are either born knowing how, or you never know.”

“(...) next year she would have another birthday, and if she just remembered to get into bed left foot first and to turn the pillow over before she went to sleep, who knows what might happen?”

“Yet she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t stop writing. She was like a medium receiving messages from the dead.”

“The trouble was, September didn’t know what sort of story she was in. Was it a merry one or a serious one? How ought she to act? If it was merry, she might dash after a Spoon and it would all be a grand adventure, with funny rhymes and somersaults and a grand party at the end with red lanterns. But if it was a serious tale, she might have to do something important, something involving with snow and arrows and enemies.”

“Every girl would secretly want to be "the one" even though she might lie to herself that she did not.”