This was what happiness felt like - this wondrous, miraculous alternative to dread.

I love you. I'm madly in love with you. Well, madly obviously, given I'm mad as a mudlark. But you saved my life. I'd be dead without you. And you're so good to me. And you love me too. How lucky is that? Amazing! Amazingly lucky. I can't live without you. You're my lucky charm." She felt a sudden desire to kill Justin's well-meaning friend.

I noticed that once you realize someone's watching you it's pretty hard not to find yourself watching them back.

If you haven't been in a war and are wondering how long it takes to get used to losing everything you think you need or love, I can tell you the answer is no time at all.

At the time, I didn't have the insight to wonder at the transient nature of despair, but now that I'm older I've seen how little it takes to turn a person's life around for better or worse. An event will do, or an Idea. Another person. An idea of a person.

The real truth is that the war didn't have much to do with it except that it provided a perfect limbo in which two people who were too young and too related could start kissing without anything or anyone making us stop.

And after awhile of this my brain and my body and every single inch of me that was alive was flooded with the feeling that I was starving, starving for Edmond. And what a coincidence, that was the feeling I loved best in the world.