“It's like a gay man being married to a straight woman. No matter how much he loves her, it's a sacrifice every moment they're together. The sex is secondary to the sacrifice.”

“We can only sacrifice so much of ourselves in a relationship before there's nothing left to love or be loved.”

“And although two people can love each other deeply, sometimes love alone doesn’t cut it. We can only sacrifice so much of ourselves in a relationship before there’s nothing left to love or be loved.”

“I know people think erotica is just a romance novel with rougher sex. It's not. If it's a subgenre of anything, it's horror.Horror? Really?Romance is sex plus love. Erotica is sex plus fear.”

“We made a deal. I can top, but not bottom." "Are you secretly a gay man?" Zachary eyed her curiously.”

“This was our house. Mine and hers. I know she’d sneak over to the rectory every once in a while and let you wail on her for a night. But I got her the rest of the time. I cooked her breakfast. I answered her fan mail. I put her to bed when she fell asleep at her desk writing. I rubbed her back when she was sore from overworking herself. And when she got all wrought up over you, it was me she cried on. No, she and I never had sex. That’s true. But we had love, real love that didn’t take anything out of us, that didn’t bruise us or break us. I loved her without hurting her. You asked me if I, a virgin, could teach her what sex should be? No, course not. Hell no. But at least I can teach her what love should be like. And she knows it too.”

“The Moonlight sonata is a strange piece of music. It's been called a Lamentation. You can feel that when you play it, can feel the sorrow and the endless repetitions. It's simple to play but maddeningly difficult to play well. The arpeggios allow great freedom of expression. Too much freedom in untutored, unskilled hands. They say Beethovan wrote it for a seventeen-year-old countess, the Countess Giulietta Guicciardi. He may have loved her.”