I didn't want to give you the one last part of myself that I couldn't take back. And then you were gone... And I realized it was already yours. It had been since the beginning. Except that I hadn't told you. It drove me mad, the thought that you would never know.

The feeling of relinquishing responsibility to someone else, letting him take control, was a relief beyond words.

Shaw...has a woman ever asked you to write a poem for her?" "Good God, no," Gideon replied with a snicker. "Shaws don't write poetry. They pay others to write it for them and then take the credit for it.

Some questions change everything.

One of the blessings human beings take for granted is the ability to remember pain without re-feeling it. The pain of the physical wounds is long gone …and the other kind of hurt, the damage done to our spirits, has been healed. We are careful with those scarred places in each other.

You’re far too prickly tempered to be a mistress. You’re far better suited as a wife.

There were times in life when you had to take a risk that might end in failure. Because otherwise you would be haunted by what you hadn’t done... the paths you hadn’t taken, the things you hadn’t experienced.