“Curse him for being all tight muscle, with ivory skin and a mouth as soft as rose petals. Curse him for having hair as fair as the sun, and eyes as black as night. Curse him for having the grace of...”

“Money talks and walks, but it does not bark.”

“And now you're off to Port Caynn. Watch them sailor lads. They'll have your skirts up and a babe in your belly afore you know what you're about.""Everyone keep warning me about sailors," I complain...”

“Her free hand was clenched in a fist. I held still, waiting for her to say something, to tell me she should have never left me here, where her friends might look to me for help.Finally she looked a...”

“Scummer, pox and wound rot!" roared Tunstall, slamming his fist down on the bed. "Gods cursed the pig-tarsed mammering craven currish beef-witted bum-licking gut-griping louts that did this to me! ...”

“Gran, for the gods' love, it's talk like yours that starts riots!" I said keeping my voice down. "Will you just put a stopper in it?"She looked at me and sighed. "Girl, do you ever take a breath an...”

“I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume tha...”

“Nobody ever gets what they want when it comes to love.”

“The strength of a love is always misjudged if we evaluate it by its immediate cause and not the stress that went before it, the dark and hollow space full of disappointment and loneliness that prec...”

“When I say it's you I like, I'm talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for t...”

“You know Balbec so well - do you have friends in the area?'I have friends wherever there are companies of trees, wounded but not vanquished, which huddle together with touching obstinacy to implore...”

“Things that matter are not easy. Feelings of happiness are easy. Happiness is not. Flirting is easy. Love is not. Saying youre friends is easy. Being friends is not.”

“I seem to have run in a great circle, and met myself again on the starting line.”

“I'm not the kind of faggot who wants to put a rainbow sticker on a machine gun.”

“And isn't love between two people better than hatred, in this world of violence and mourning? There seemed to me a fragile kindness in their love that survived through this poisonous war. Even thou...”