“Have you ever been turned down by a girl who afterwards married and then been introduced to her husband? If so you'll understand how I felt when Clarence burst on me. You know the feeling. First of all, when you hear about the marriage, you say to yourself, "I wonder what he's like." Then you meet him, and think, "There must be some mistake. She can't have preferred this to me!”

“He stood up and took a step toward her. "There has been a request for your hand in marriage.""Is that why you kissed me? So you could take me home and then marry me to a man I don't love? Who is he?" she demanded, emotionally spent now and uncaring that tears were streaming down her face.He started toward her."Don't you dare kiss me again," she ordered. "I can't think when you… Just don't," she stammered. "And as for the offer, I decline.""You can't decline until you know who he is," he reasoned."All right. Tell me his name, and then I'll decline. You're going to praise him first though, aren't you?That's what you always do to try to get me to agree," she ended, and even she could hear the heartbreak in her voice."No, I'm not going to praise him. He's riddled with flaws."She stopped trying to run away. "He is?"He slowly nodded. "I have it on good authority that he's stupid and arrogant and obstinate, or at least he was until he realized what a fool he has been.""But that's what I said about… you.""I love you, Bridgid. Will you marry me?”

“I was thinking about the first time I ever saw you," he said, "and how after that I couldn't forget you. I wanted to, but I couldn't stop myself. I forced Hodge to let me be the one who came to find you and bring you back to the Institue. And even back then, in that stupid coffee shop, when I saw you sitting on that couch with Simon, even then that felt wrong to me-- I should have been the one sitting with you. The one who made you laugh like that. I couldn't get rid of that feeling. That it should have been me. And the more I knew you, the more I felt it--it had never been like that for me before. I'd always wanted a girl and then gotten to know her and not wanted her anymore, but with you the feeling just got stronger and stronger until that night when you showed up at Renwick's and I knew.”

“Do you like Cam?” the girl asked me casually. I wondered how she knew him—I thought he’d been a nobody just like me.“I barely even know him,” I told her, and her face relaxed. She was relieved. I recognized that look in her eyes—dreamy and hopeful. It must have been the way I looked when I used to talk about Conrad, used to try to think of ways to insert his name into conversation. It made me sad for her, for me.”

“How do you know what a rock star feels like, Ada May? Have you ever been a rock star? I don't think so,' Beth Ann said.'I was just guessing.''Well, not me. I'm not saying I feel like something when I don't have any idea what that feels like and neither do you.”

“I know it. I know I shall make beastly mistakes, Father-""The world does not forgive mistakes so quickly, my girl." He sounds bitter and sad."If the world will not forgive me," I say softly, "I shall have to learn to forgive myself."He nods in understanding."And how will you marry? Or do you intend to marry?"I think of Kartik, and tears threaten. "I shall meet someone one day, as Mother found you.”