“I asked Granny one time if she thought green might be God's favorite color since he'd made so many shades of it.”

“Some people is born at the start of a long hard row to hoe. Well, I am older than God's dog and been in this world a long time and it seems to me that right from the git-go, Larkin Stanton had the longest and hardest row I've ever seen.”

“He'd never seen one so vibrant, though, or so vividly compelling... those glowing green eyes sparkling with sunlight and curiosity and silent laughter, and when she glanced in Henry's direction, she held his gaze, a look that was both challenging and enigmatic... He was utterly certain that this was Eleanor of Aquitaine, and no less sure that the French King must be one of God's greatest fools.”

“For me, it was a Gold Star day. I'd identified an enemy, and I'd made a life decision: I might come home tore up from fighting or late from being punished, but I'd never come home crying. So far, I ain't.”

“Red is all right, I thought to myself. Wherever and whatever he is or will be, he is all right. It is I who must be made well. There's a hole inside me that will have to be filled up. And an aching that will have to grow less.”

“He could still remember how breathtakingly beautiful Eleanor was that day. He'd have been content to gaze into her eyes for hours, trying to decide if they were green with gold flecks or gold with green flecks. She had high, finely sculpted cheekbones, soft, flawless skin he'd burned to touch, and lustrous dark braids entwined with gold-threaded ribbons he yearned to unfasten; he'd have bartered his chances of salvation to bury his face in that glossy, perfumed hair, to wind it around his throat and see it spread out on his pillow. He'd watched, mesmerized, as a crystal raindrop trickled toward the sultry curve of her mouth and wanted nothing in his life so much, before or since, as he wanted her. ”

“he'd thought of fate as something hostile, a thief moving soundlessly in the night”