“...a sad sort of vulnerability was wafting from her, making the night smell like maple syrup.”

“..his tone, like warm maple syrup, drizzled down her spine and licked all the way back up.”

“Let's say you had to report back to heaven at the end of your time on earth, tell them what your personal allotment of experience had been: wouldn't it sound like Poppy's speech? The smell of radiator dust on a winter morning, the taste of hot maple syrup ...”

“Hope wasn't a cottage industry; it was neither a product that she could manufacture like needlepoint samplers nor a substance she could secrete, in her cautious solitude, like a maple tree producing the essence of syrup. Hope was to be found in other people, by reaching out, by taking risks, by opening her fortress heart.”

“Lucas too was shoveling pancakes into his mouth. Syrup dripped from the sexy stubble that covered his chin and her mouth watered at the sight. Fallon no longer wanted the syrup that covered her pancakes. More like the syrup from his chin, and lips, or hell just dump it on him!!!”

“We don't want you convicted for condiment theft. You go to that prison, you'll meet big-time operators. Maple syrup stealers.”