I wouldn't marry Giddon to save my life," Katsa said. "Not even to save yours." "Well." Raffin's eyes were full of laughter. "I'd leave that part out.

This may be a thing you neither want nor need," she said. "But I'd rather you have it, wishing didn't, than not have it and wish you did.

It was a very hard thing to have crushed the heart, and the hopes, of a friend.

There is nothing unnatural in this world," he said. "An unnatural thing is a thing that could never happen in nature. I happened. I am natural, and the things I want are natural. The power of your mind, and your beauty, even when you've been drugged in the bottom of a boat for two weeks, covered in grime and your face purple and green - your unnatural beauty is natural. Nature is horrifying.

I've liked you better when Katsa's around," Giddon said. "She's so rotten to me that you seem positively pleasant in contrast.

He made her drunk, this man made her drunk; and every time his eyes flashed into hers she could not breathe.

A book that bores me to tears is a book that neglects character building and quality of prose.