Hardy Cates," I said, coming into the room, "you behave, or I'll step on your tube." The nurse seemed taken aback by my unsympathetic bedside manner. But Hardy's gaze met mine in a moment of bright, hot voltage, and he relaxed, reassured in a way that cooing sympathy could never have done. "That only works if it's a breathing tube," he told me.

I’ll take your bet,” he said grimly. “I’m going to win it. And in three months, I’m going to put this back on your finger, and take you to bed, and do things to you that are outlawed in the civilized world.

The way glass can be molded or blown or cut into any kind of shape made me think about how we as people - our characters or souls - can be shaped or changed by outside influences.

I realized that my kisses with Dane had become a form of punctuation, the quotations or the hasty dash at the end of a conversation

A book had always been a door to another world... a world much more interesting and fantastical than reality. But she had finally discovered that life could be even more wonderful than fantasy. And that love could fill the real world with magic.

I was a new person in the same world, which was a lot more difficult than being the same person in a new world.

No one can tell you what your path is . . . but someday you'll discover it. . . and it won't be at all what you expected.