“She seems very calm, but that bothers me all the more. I'm horrified that she might be accepting of a life that relegates her to empty corner tables, that my daughter might be making do with a minimum of joy.”

“But the more Emma recognised her love, the more she crushed it down, that it might not be evident, that she might make it less. What restrained her was, no doubt, idleness and fear, and a sense of shame also. She thought she had repulsed him too much, that the time was past, that all was lost. Then pride, the joy of being able to say to herself 'I am virtuous', and to look at herself in the glass taking resigned poses, consoled her a little for the sacrifice she believed she was making.”

“Overexcited? No! I'm getting very calmly worried that someone might shoot me!”

“Exactly. They're stupid. Who cares?""I care. They bother me. And that's why I'm stupid. That makes me exponentially more stupid than stupid. I'm stupid to the power of stupid." She waved her hand. The moon blew away."That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." I looked at her out of the corner of my eye.”

“Her work was all she had or wanted. But there were times, like tonight, when she felt that sudden, peculiar emptiness, which was not emptiness but silence, not despair, but immobility, as if nothing within her were destroyed, but everything stood still. Then she felt the wish to find a moment's joy outside, the wish to be held as a passive spectator by some work or sight of greatness. Not to make it, she thought, but to accept it; not to begin, but to respond; not to create, but to admire. I need it to let me go on, she thought, because joy is one's fuel.”

“Ella knew she should be horrified. Zane had killed someone for just touching her. But, and she might burn in hell for thinking this, she thought it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her. In a perverted way, she also found it romantic. She finally had someone who wanted to protect her. My very own vampire in dark armor.”