“How long have you been standing here?""Only a moment." I fluttered my lashes. I am as innocent as a baby bird, I tried to say with my eyes."Really." He spoke it as a statement, and frowned. "You know, eavesdropping is most unladylike."My jaw dropped. "Eavesdropping? I was doing no such thing.""No?""Certainly not, Mr. Wilcox. And false accusations are most un...most un-manly-like." The retort was a stuttered failure, but I puffed out my chest anyway. "What were you doing outside?""Getting fresh air."My eyebrows shot up as if to say "Really?" He squinted at me, and I glowered back.”

“Do you think I'll ever be better at this?" I wondered, mostly to myself. "That my heart might someday stop trying to jump out of my chest whenever you touch me?""I really hope not," he said, a bit smug.”

“The man of my dreams is almost faded now. The one I have created in my mind. The sort of man each woman dreams of in her most secret and deepest part of her heart. I could almost see him now before me. What would I say to him if he were really here? Forgive me, I've never known this feeling. I've lived without it all my life. Is it any wonder that I fail to recognize it? You brought it to me for the first time. Is there any way I can tell you how my life has changed? Anyway at all, to let you know what sweetness you have given me? There's so much to say-- and I can't find the words-- except for these... I love you. That is what I would say to him if he were really here. ”

“You should climb around inside my brain, Dan. It's like this dark room surrounded by quicksand.""I know what you mean," her brother said quietly. "I hate being in my brain sometimes. I have to get out.""What do you do?" Amy asked.Dan shrugged "I go to other places. My toes. My shoulders. But mostly here." He tapped his chest and immediately reddened. "I know. It's stupid.""Not really," Amy said. "I wish I could do that, too.”

“It’s my job really, to help you, my reader, in accepting things as real that aren’t. Most books try to get you to accept things that, at the very least, could be real – and that’s difficult enough, goodness knows – but here, in this book, nothing seems to be even trying to be real. Except, I would say, me. I’m here, I’m real. And to be honest, I’ve never been here before. I don’t know where I am, I don’t know what I’m doing. In some ways, I’m afraid this is the most real story I’ve ever written.”

“I furrowed my eyebrows."Are you looking at my bosom, sir?"The eyes snapped back up. "At such a serious moment? What do you take me for?""A rogue, I believe." I tried not to smile.”