Romance

"He dropped his voice, so low that Tessa wasn’t sure if what he said next was real or part of the dream darkness rising to claim her, though shefought against it.“I’ve never minded it,” he went on. “Being lost, that is. I had always thought one could not be truly lost if one knew one’s own heart. But I fear I maybe lost without knowing yours.” He closed his eyes as if he were bone-weary, and she saw how thin his eyelids were, like parchment paper, andhow tired he looked. “Wo ai ni, Tessa,” he whispered. “Wo bu xiang shi qu ni.”She knew, without knowing how she knew, what the words meant. I love you. And I don’t want to lose you."

"After 40 years of marriage, isn’t it amazing when you can look at your partner sound asleep next to you and still believe they have potential."

"We knew each other to our fingertips. No, that's not right. We only knew each other in our fingertips, and that was nothing at all, and for a while that was okay. We could have been a love story, a fairy tale, an indie film about high school and selective insanity featuring a boy of angel parts and a girl made of dreaming. We could have been all the best things: bracelets sliding down arms while shots slid down throats, laughter and crashing music in dark and flashing rooms, kisses that started hesitant but didn't stay that way."

"She was an extension of his dreams. A sprinkling of magic dust, of unfeasible wishes, on his stable existence. The one thing-the one bright, marvelous thing-he wanted more than the world, but didn't deserve. However much he was tortured for her sake, however much blood he had spilled to protect her, the bruises to his body and the thrashings to his sanity, it would never be enough to make a wretch like him worthy of such a miracle."

"What sort of look are you going for?” Damn, how did he answer this? “Something…normal,” he finally said."

"Witch Baby wanted to ask Ping how to find her Jah-Love angel. She knew Raphael was not him, even though Raphael had the right eyes and smile and name. She knew how he looked--the angel in her dream--but she didn't know how to find him. Should she roller-skate through the streets in the evenings when the streetlights flicker on? Should she stow away to Jamaica on a cruise ship and search for him in the rain forests and along the beaches? Would he come to her? Was he waiting, dreaming of her in the same way she waited and dreamed?"

"That made love—not grace—the magic ingredient. Then anew thought hit her. Perhaps love was grace. A shiver wentup her spine. What did that make anger? The antithesis ofgrace?"

"I hated him, loved him, wanted him, and yet I wished him away. So many conflicting emotions of wants and needs. So much fear. Not because of him, but because of myself—of how deep my feelings and desires were running, and how much I would fall if I happened to lose my grip."

"Just leave me alone, I want to be alone,” she said when Jack tried to open the car door. She hit the lock, and wound the window up. Since the roof was down, it was a fairly pointless exercise."

"Find the pitch and pace and syllables and words you love to hear. Delight your own senses, and self-romance."

"Jenny: But surely Lord Blakely could not abandon his estates for so long. Gareth: No. Lord Blakely could not. Not unless he had someone he could trust to run his estates in his absence. And Lord Blakely... Well, Lord Blakely did not trust anyone. Jenny: Lord Blakely is talking about himself in the third person, past tense. Its disturbing."

"Max - "... Do me a favor, if the constable comes knocking, tell him I was here all morning, will you"Dodsley - "Killed someone again, did we"Max- "Never before luncheon, Dodsley. It's still early yet."

"I’ll support whatever you decide. I’llhelp you any way I can. What’s mine isyours, okay? If you need something, I’ll make sure you have it, however I have to get it. -- Jason Dorsey"

"You ought to be blowing me kisses, wench."

"Conn was a wickedly passionate, fiercely dominant man who loved her too much to ever really hurt her."

"Misha, my best friend who got me into bed and fucked me with a lie."

"I remembered Nahadoth's lips on my throat and fought to suppress a shudder, only half succeeding. Death as a consequence of lying with a god wasn't something I had considered, but it did not surprise me. A mortal man's strength had its limits. He spent himself and slept. He could be a good lover, but even his best skills were only guesswork - for every caress that sent a woman's head into the clouds, he might try ten that brought her back to earth."

"Honest to God, she was the noisiest woman he'd ever been shot at with."

"Good luck, Oretsev. Find the firebird, and when this is over, I'll see you well rewarded. A farmhouse in Udova. A dacha near the city. Whatever you want."I don't need any of that. Just..." He dropped Nikolai's hand and looked away. "Deserve her."

"Oh, aye. I'm the devil all right. And last night, you were begging to step into the fire."