“The tiny features below, taken together with the gentle mass of Montblanc towering above them, the Vanoise glacier almost invisible in the shimmering distance, and the Alpine panorama that occupied half the horizon, had for the first time in her life awoken in her a sense of the contrarieties that are in our longings.”

“It was just a magnificent, India-ink night of moonlit clouds below and glimpses of the shimmering sea. What century are you in? he longed to ask her.”

“She hunkered down, stared across the horizon. Felt the vast cold world spread out all around her and was reassured by the impersonality of it. This land--wild and serene, huge, ruthless and gentle by turns, was always unconcerned with her, small Madeline who was a tiny dot on it's landscape for a moment in time.”

“Someone once told her there's a formula for how long it takes to get over someone, that it's half as long as the time you've been together.”

“When she got control of herself a few minutes later, she realized that in his arms she felt almost what she had in her dream, that inexpressible sense of peace and security. Of belonging, utterly.As long as her soulmate was alive, and they were together, she would be all right.”

“She had the feeling, the tingling, lingering sense that something or someone life altering was just over the horizon. She had no idea what it was, but she wanted to rush headlong to bring it to her.”