“That he loved her was his life’s greatest grace—that she loved him was a burden and mystery beyond compare.”

“Love, he thought as he held her to his heart, was an agony beyond compare.”

“She had loved him. He knew this; he had never doubted it. But she had also asked him to kill her. If you love someone that much, you did not lay that sort of burden on him for the rest of his life.”

“The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him is not to believe that he loves you.”

“She is a cat," he thought. "That's all she is—a cat!"But that was not how his mind saw her—quick beyond all dreams of speed, sharp, clever, unbelievably graceful, beautiful, wordless and undemanding.Where would he ever find a woman who could compare with her?”

“She got to her knees, running her nails lightly along his chest, loving the way he groaned, loving how his breath wheezed out when she took him into her hands, loving him, even when he reared up and said, “Now,” and took her waist in his hands and pushed her onto her back. She didn’t object or take offense. Words were beyond her, too, as he surged into her, hard and fast, and she forgot how to breathe and how to think.”