“Temptation turns you. It makes you into something younever dreamed, it presses you to give up everything youever loved, it calls you to sell your soul for one, fleetingmoment.”

“You are beautiful and brilliant and bold and so very passionate about life and love and those things that you believe in. And you taught me that everything I believed, everything I thought I wanted, everything I had spent my life espousing--all of it...it is wrong. I want your version of life...vivid and emotional and messy and wonderful and filled with happiness. But I cannot have it without you.”

“You cheated!”He looked at her, wide-eyed with feigned outrage. “I beg your pardon. If you were a man, I would call you out for that accusation.”“And I assure you, my lord, that I would ride forth victoriously on behalf of truth, humility, and righteousness.”“Are you quoting the Bible to me?”“Indeed,” she said primly, the portrait of piousness.“While gambling.”“What better location to attempt to reform one such as you?”

“..Instead of Ralston saying any number of wonderful things that could have been appropriate for the precise situation in which they had found themselves -from You are the most unparalleled female I have ever known, to How can I ever live without you now that I've found heaven in your arms, to I love you, Callie, more than I had ever dreamed to even Shall we have another go?- he'd gone and mucked it up by apologizing.”

“Dear Sixpence,I saved them all, you know. Every letter you ever sent, even those to which I never replied. I’m sorry for so many things, my love: that I leftyou; that I never came home; that it took me so long to realize that you were my home and that, with you by my side, none of the restmattered.But in the darkest hours, on the coldest nights, when I felt I’d lost everything, I still had your letters. And through them, in some small way,I still had you.I loved you then, my darling Penelope, more than I could imagine—just as I love you now, more than you can know.MichaelHell House, February 1831”

“She looked up at him and said,"What did you say?""You have beautiful eyes.""You told my father that he has beautiful eyes?"He smiled. "No. You distracted me. I told your father that, while I was very grateful for the lesson, I doubt I would ever need of it again- because I was planning to court only one woman in my lifetime.”

“Also-and this is critical-you are not ugly." She blinked.Nick's eyes danced with amusement."Remember, Isabel. It was your brother who said it. I would not dare to take credit for such pretty words. I would have said something more pedestrian. It takes a great orator to come up with -""Not ugly." She gave a little shake of her head."What a lovely compliment.”