“Perhaps in body I am not quite as real as you,” he said, then looked alive, making him once again seem real, even though she knew that if she tried to touch him, she could not. “But my thoughts and emotions are as real as yours. My soul, Mia Randall, is as real as yours.”

“I agree. To me, it [galloping on horseback] is the essence of freedom—the power of the beast beneath you, the wind in your face, the thundering of the hooves. It is a great elixir for the soul.”“And does your soul need healing, Benjamin?” she asked quietly, gently running her fingertips across his bicep and down his forearm.He turned away from the view of the pond and looked at her with clear, blue eyes, his expression serious. He captured her fingers in the palm of his hand. “My healing started the day I met you. You are my elixir.”“Then perhaps you need another dose,” she whispered, her face upturned as she leaned closer to him.”

“What’s wrong with my clothing?' she asked, glancing down the length of her body, clothed in a tank top and shorts.He helped her up, unable to stifle a grin. 'Let’s just say women do not dress like that in 1863.”

“The rainy days in life are what make us treasure the sunny days.”

“For me, the dying part wasn’t so horrible. I was only in pain for a few moments before death arrived. For me, the difficult part was having so many things that I had yet to experience, leaving behind people that I cared about. I wasn’t through living.”

“...sometimes we can’t enjoy the bloom of a rose because we’re too busy crying over being pricked by the thorn.”

“...some days [Thomas] and I had almost no time at all, but still we did it. Knowingly, unapologetically, quick in the pursuit of something that seemed quite separate from ourselves. I had to have him inside me every day; a missed day was a missing day, the world crumpled. My blood was different in my veins now, luxuriously silty, peppered and precious. My body was a different body and knew what it needed. There was a sense of fit between us: not merely physical, although there definitely was that. I didn't know how I lived the minutes when he wasn't inside me, when there was no glittery rub of him inside me. I crammed him into me, hauled him in. My urgency shocked and delighted me.”