Perhaps it was only that the sense of reaching out to something larger than yourself gives you some feeling that there is something larger - and there really has to be, because plainly you aren't sufficient to the situation.

I have no objection to well-written romance, but I'd read enough of it to know that that's not what I had written. I also knew that if it was sold as romance I'd never be reviewed by the 'New York Times' or any other literarily respectable newspaper - which is basically true, although the 'Washington Post' did get round to me eventually.

I had kissed my share of men, particularly during the war years, when flirtation and instant romance were the light-minded companions of death and uncertainty. Jamie, thought, was something different. His extreme gentleness was in no way tentative; rather it was a promise of power known and held in leash; a challenge and a provocation the more remarkable for its lack of demand. I am yours, it said. And if you will have me, then.

Torn between the impulse to stroke his head, and the urge to cave it in with a rock, I did neither.

Ye werena the first lass I kissed," he said softly. "But I swear you'll be the last.

Sometimes our best action result in things that are most regrettable.

The colors of living things begin to fade with the last breath, and the soft, springy skin and supple muscle rot within weeks. But the bones sometimes remain, faithful echoes of the shape, to bear some last faint witness to the glory of what was.