“Her new friends especially liked the southern phrases she recalled from her childhood, such as her father's remark that 'if I hadn't sold that Coca Cola stock I could just sit and pat my foot.”

“Papa, do you like my new friend?" Frances Catherine asked when they were halfway across the field."I surely do.""Can I keep her?""For the love of...No, you can't keep her. She isn't a puppy. You can be her friend, though," he hastily added before his daughter could argue with him."Forever, papa?"She 'd asked her father that question, but Judith answered her. "Forever," she shyly whispered.Frances Catherine reached across her father's chest to take hold of Judith's hand. "Forever," she pledged.”

“She [Sidonie Rougon] never spoke of her husband, nor of her childhood, her family, or her personal concerns. There was only one thing she never sold, and that was herself.”

“The satyr gave me a sympathetic glance. She was shorter than me by a foot, with large hazel eyes that matched her curly hair. I tried to keep my eyes away from her furry lower half, but it was difficult, especially when she smelled faintly like a petting zoo.”

“At first she was overjoyed that he would be with her, but then she recalled that human people could not live under the water, and he could only visit her father's palace as a dead man.”

“I am already married," she remarks to the empty air, twisting the ring on her right hand that covers an sold, distinctive scar.”

“Yukiko steered the subject away from sex as fast as she could. She was still occasionally woken by nightmares about the day her father had tried to sit her down for "the talk".”