As I watched Bill, waiting with apparent calm for death to come to him, I had a flash of him as I'd known him: the first vampire I'd ever met, the first man I'd ever gone to bed with, the first suitor I'd ever loved. Everything that followed had tainted those memories, but for one moment I saw him clearly, and I loved him again.

He looked like he'd just seen the Ghost of You Better Shut Your Mouth.

In the world I lived in, the world of human people, there were ties and debts and consequences and good deeds. That was what bound people to society; maybe that was what constituted society. And I tried to live in my little niche in it the best way I could.

Of course I am grateful, and I'm sure you are, as you put it, a special vintage," Bill said politely, "But I have my own wine cellar.

If it pleases you and you can write at all, it's gonna please somebody else.

Oh, God, puppy dog eyes. From a six-foot-five ancient Viking vampire.

If this were the fifties, she’d be checking Sam’s collars for lipstick stains. (Did people do that anymore? Why did women kiss collars, anyway? Besides, Sam almost always wore T-shirts.)