“We call our religion the Great Romance, but really it feels more like a list of rules than anything similar to the Great Romance we once had. But now I think the knowledge of Elyon is starting to work its way into me again--in both realities...If Elyon's real there, surely God must be real here.”

“The point is, we were created to love beauty. We love beauty because Elyon loves beauty. We love song because Elyon loves song. We love love because Elyon loves love. And we love to be loved because Elyon loves to be loved. In all these ways we are like Elyon. In one way or another, everything we do is tied to this unfolding story of love between us and Elyon.”

“Elyon was restoring the Great Romance. Teeleh had stolen his first love, but now Justin had reclaimed her. The price had been his own life. He'd taken her disease on himself and he'd drowned with it, inviting them to embrace his invitation to the Romance by following him into the lake to drown with him. To live as his bride!”

“And to understand how love unfolds, you must understand how Elyon loves.”

“He plunged beneath the surface and knew that these were Elyon's waters, and his lake had no bottom.”

“Because she, too, was the Dark One, wasn't she? They all were, as much as they were all Forest Dwellers, without Elyon's cleansing waters. Yet they were chosen. It was up to them to follow either the one who had made them dark, or the one who had chosen each of them. Teeleh or Elyon.”

“This was the Great Romance. To love at any cost.”