“I opened the door of my mother's stand-alone wardrobe and let the smell of her wash over me. I loved having this one unspoiled part of her left just for me. I leaned forward, slipped my face in bet...”

“I stopped looking at the cars after the first few miles. Once I started to see past the exteriors, I saw what lay inside some of them and felt the urge to sprint to the nearest freeway exit. Some p...”

“His touch was like an electric current that ran through his fingers into my cheek and down the back of my neck.I took another step back, away from him. "Don't do that," I whispered and hated the pa...”

“I used to be Autumn Winters, daughter of an actress and an architect. I had been one of three living in this home, but now I was just Autumn Winters, and I was alone.”

“The temperature of my blood dropped several degrees, and I took a step back. My heart quickened. "Storm?" I prompted, looking at the boxes on the dock labeled "non-perishable.”

“When you expect the world to end at any moment, you know there is no need to hurry. You take your time, you do your work well.”

“If it happens that the human race doesn't make it, then the fact that we were here once will not be altered, that once upon a time we peopled this astonishing blue planet, and wondered intelligentl...”

“I like living in my head because in there, everyone is kind and innocent. Once you start integrating yourself into the world, you realize that people are nasty, mean creatures. They're worse than z...”

“Every great love starts with a great story...”

“I knew, in the silence that followed, that anything could happen here. It might be too late: again, I might have missed my chance. But I would at least know I tried, that I took my heart and extend...”

“You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.”

“The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he is on.”

“Soldiers manage by dividing themselves. They're one man in the killing, another at home, and the man that dandles his bairn on his knee has nothing to do wi' the man who crushed his enemy's throat ...”

“The world is vicious, too huge to care about even its own survival”