“There's a quickening of her heart when she sees him. She tells herself it's anger.”

“She had seen what it cost him and her heart quickened with compassion. For that alone, she might have loved him almost.”

“But as she continued and finished her tale, I could tell that her heart was elsewhere, and when she excused herself to go to bed, she left without saying good night. After that, the princesses in her stories were always beautiful. Always.”

“Forsaking the shield of insensibility she had tightly woven over herself during her years as a gelder, she unbarred her heart. She invited him in.”

“What are the thorns really telling her? It's why she won't let us see them, why she clings to them--or they cling to her--as though she got herself buried in a bramble thicket and she can't get out and we can't get in to free her.”

“There was a dumb misery about him that irritated her; there was a manly staying of his hand that made her heart beat faster. She felt her agitation rising, and she said to herself that she was angry in the way a woman is angry when she has been in the wrong.”