“I lowered onto the sweetest mouth I'd ever tasted and I never wanted to taste another for, God, thank you, she was the only thing that kept me from falling over the edge to the end of me.”

“The taste of things recovered is the sweetest honey we will ever know.”

“Rise up and lift your lips to death, for it is the sweetest thing you will ever taste.”

“Good isn't my thing but Sawyer's important to me. Please remember I've got my limits and you studying my mouth like you want a taste is pushing me dangerously close to the edge of those limits.”

“From this experience, I understood the danger of focusing only on what isn't there. What if I came to the end of my life and realized that I'd spent every day watching for a man who would never come to me? What an unbearable sorrow it would be, to realize I'd never really tasted the things I'd eaten, or seen the places I'd been, because I'd thought of nothing but the Chairman even while my life was drifting away from me. And yet if I drew my thoughts back from him, what life would I have? I would be like a dancer who had practiced since childhood for a performance she would never give.”

“She kissed me on the mouth. Her mouth tasted like iced coffee and cardamom, and I was overwhelmed by the taste, her hot skin and the smell of unwashed hair. I was confused, but not unwilling. I would have let her do anything to me.”