“My pleasure," he assured me, propping one shoulder against the doorjamb and folding his arms across his chest. "Rather nice change from my normal daily routine. I don't often have comely young maidens throwing themselves at my feet.""Yes, well," I said, coloring, "that won't happen again."He smiled down at me, and after a final handshake I made my departure. I had almost reached the end of the neatly edged walk when he spoke."What a pity," he said, but I don't think I was meant to hear it.”

“Oliver...''What?''I do like you.''But?''I just don't want you to think that I'm... that is, I'm really not looking for...''Hey.' I could hear the faint smile in his voice. 'It's a book, not an etching.”

“When I meet a wind I cannot fight , I can do naught but set my sails to let it take me where it will.”

“There's a line in The Barretts of Wimpole Street - you know, the play - where Elizabeth Barrett is trying to work out the meaning of one of Robert Browning's poems, and she shows it to him, and he reads it and he tells her when he wrote that poem, only God and Robert Browning knew what it meant, and now only God knows. And that's how I feel about studying English. Who knows what the writer was thinking, and why should it matter? I'd rather just read for enjoyment.”

“So, you see, my heart is held forever by this place," she said. "I cannot leave.”

“If it is true that men have souls that do survive them," he went on, ignoring me, "and if those souls are born again to life, you need not worry that my ghost will haunt you. I'll haunt you in the flesh, instead.”

“I've told you once I would not force you to my will ... When we become lovers, it will be because you desire as much as I-Richard”