“She dares me to pour myself out like a living waterfall. She dares me to enter the soul that is more than my own; she extinguishes fear in mere seconds. She lets light come through.”

“Come on, she willed through the care window. Come on, change me. I dare you.”

“Because no windows were open and the air was so still and cold that the trees dared not move for fear of encountering more of it than they had to, Christiana thought that she had entered a city of the dead.”

“Let it rain, let it pour, because she don't love me anymore. So let it come down on me. Every word, let it hurt, even more than I deserve.”

“I liked this girl in my sixth grade class. I dared her to kiss me -- but she didn't!”

“There was a warmth of fury in his last phrases. He meant she loved him more than he her. Perhaps he could not love her. Perhaps she had not in herself that which he wanted. It was the deepest motive of her soul, this self-mistrust. It was so deep she dared neither realise nor acknowledge. Perhaps she was deficient. Like an infinitely subtle shame, it kept her always back. If it were so, she would do without him. She would never let herself want him. She would merely see.”