“Roar's smile widened. "I know. You missed me." She rolled her eyes. "It's barely been three weeks since I last saw you.""Miserable stretch of time." He said.”

“How can I judge?" she said at last. "To me, he is a hero. To the world a monster." She let her head fall into her arms and started crying quietly. "I miss him! Curse him! I miss him!"Mithorden put a hand on her shoulder and let her cry for a few minutes. A sad smile slowly spread across his face. "I'm glad you can forgive him," he said at last.Luthiel lifted her head. "How do you know?"Because you miss him.”

“Roar leaned across the table and smiled at her seductively, his dark hair falling into his eyes. 'When you say everything happens in the Realms, do you mean everything?' Aria laughed nervously.'Yes. Especially that.There are no risks in the Realms.' Roar's smile widened. 'You simply think it and it happens? And it actually feels real?' 'Why are we talking about this?' 'I need a Smarteye,' he said.”

“You must tell me about it when you do,' she said. 'When you make love for the first time, I mean. I want to know what you think.'He glanced away from her, out of the window. An ice-cream parlour, a man with a dog, a tree. How was he going to get out of shopping next week?'It's so wonderful, it's like,' and she left her mouth open while she thought, and then it came to her, and she smiled, 'it's like colours everywhere.”

“I think I missed my window," he said."What window?""My get-a-life window. I think I was supposed to figure all this stuff out somewhere between twenty-two and twenty-six, and now it's too late.""It's not too late," she said. "You're getting a life. You've got a job, you're saving up to move out. You're meeting people. You went to a bar...""And that was a disaster. Actually, everything has been a disaster since I quit school.""You didn't quit school," she said. He could hear her rolling her eyes. "You finished your master's degree. Another master's degree.""Everything has been a disaster since I decided my life as it was wasn't good enough.""It WASN'T good enough," she said."It was good enough for me.""Then why have you been trying so hard to change it?”

“I like photographing women who appear to know something of life. I recently did a session with a great beauty, a movie star in in her thirties. I photographed her twice within three weeks and the second time I said: "You're much more beautiful today than you were three weeks ago." And she replied: "But I'm also three weeks older.”