Some romantic you are," Caine complained as he pushed the door open with his back."Whatever happened to women who liked to be swept off their feet?" "They got dropped," Diana said flatly.

he wouldn't mention, now or then, the illegal nine-millimeter automatic he had in his pocket. Why distress the woman you loved with minor details?

I'm not putting up with this," she continued. "You can't even go out and buy a solar system without worrying I'll fall apart. How are you supposed to get anything done?" "Actually, I'm not in the market for a solar system right at the moment.

You got used to running things on your own." "What could he do about it when he's in Iraq and the car breaks down in Kansas?" Beckett gave her a long, quiet look. "I'm not in Iraq." "No, and it has to be said, I'm not in Kansas anymore." She lifted her hands, then let them fall. "It's not that I've forgotten how to be a couple, but that my experience in being part of one is different from yours. Maybe from most people's. And I've been on my own a long time." "Now you're not. I'm not fighting a war, and I'm right here." Needed to be here, he realized, with her.

That was the biggest problem with getting used to someone, she thought. You were lonely when they weren't there.

I always thought everybody made up stories in their heads - never thought about actually writing them down on paper until I was snowed in with the kids in the blizzard of '79 - 3 feet of snow. I live in a rural area and was stuck. No morning kindergarten - it was a nightmare.

Evil cannot and will not be vanquished by evil. Dark will only swallow dark and deepen. The good and the light are the keenest weapons.