Real love, after all, was worth the price you paid, however briefly it might last.

Only her death could prove her innocence; a circle of impossible, deathly judgement.

Love was like that, like a dream you didn't quite understand, one in which you didn't necessarily know what you were looking at until it was right in front of you.

There was the blue sky above her and all those many roses, the ones that gave off the scent of cloves in the rain and the ones that left a trace of lemon on your fingers, the ones that were the color of blood, and those that were as white as clouds. Each one was sweeter than the next and as red as gemstones.

He stepped off the pavement like a man jumping off a bridge, as calm as a swimmer with an ocean out below. Lucy had known what he was going to do the instant their eyes met. She'd know what he intended because she would have done the very same thing if she'd had his courage. Nothing was going to break his fall.

I saw the end of his life right there in that single moment. His pride, his decency, his secrets, his death.

I read "The Group" by Mary McCarthy. It had tons of sex in it, or so I thought at the time.