“It was the moment of early spring like the pause when a fiddler has lifted his bow and holds it over the strings, ready to call forth the music.”

“Willem holds my wrist for a long moment, looking at that birthmark. Then he lifts it to his mouth. And though his lips are soft and his kiss is gentle, it feels like a knife jamming into the electrical socket. It feels like the moment when I go live”

“He'd been coiled like a snake for years and the tension had gone slack and when he was ready to spring the spring wasn't there, but it could be recoiled.”

“When one star sets, a million spring forth.”

“He’d heard many songs in his life, sang thousands of them himself, but the sweetest music imaginable played for him in that moment: the sound of Sophie—the woman of his dreams—calling out his name, over and over again as together they reached their peak.”

“Forever has no meaning when you're living in the moment. I wasn't ready for that moment to end.”