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.

Fencing isn't really fighting. It's more like chess with the risk of puncture wounds

Before you marry, you have to get shot by an arrow and fall in love,” the boy explained. He paused thoughtfully. “But I don’t think the rest of it hurts as much as the beginning.

If I were an opera singer, I"d have sung you an aria. If I were an artist, I would have painted your portrait. But cooking is what I'm best at.

The trick was forgetting about what she had lost ...and learning to go on with what she had left.

Just you,' Hardy said when he got his breath back. 'All I want is you.

Win told me that one isn’t improved by being at the top of the mountain, one is improved by the climb.