“My heart, for unknown reasons, seems to freeze in motion in my chest. I can see he senses it and he holds his pause to enjoy my suffering, prolonging my ignorance. Viktor, what?”

“How many times can a heart be shattered and still be pieced back together? How many times before the damage is irreparable?”

“Whatever happened in those more than one hundred years, from the time my great-great-great grandfather studied law to the time when my own father took his bar exam in 1989, I may never know. Perhap...”

“Tragic tales rarely do make sense.”

“We ran on the fuel of youth and hormones and ignorant arrogance, imagining we had the whole world and the workings thereof figured out.”

“A smile is hidden beneath the mustache, it crinkles the corners of his hooded eyes. I didnt. I have other business in town and I told my friend I would attend to the matter of his son, as he could ...”

“I had turned to leave and he had called after me. “Miss Maria, I kin no other woman who could be wearing men’s trousers and be dripping such as ye are and look quite so lovely. It’s a right shame y...”

“But because of you, I learned to love and not fear. Because of you, I can be loved and not be tormented. Because of you, I feel like a woman and not a victim.”

“Scusi mia bella*, but it runs in the blood of all Italians to be skillful lovers. So you have to get used to this.”

“You can't push me away, mio cuore. You can't!”

“As the tension between the Protestants and the Church of Rome intensified, so did the desire for a third way among dissenting groups. Soon a new group emerged, though in some senses it was also an ...”

“Good men are often more practical than pretty " said Mother. "Andrius just happens to be both.”

“How did I get here How did I end up in the arms of a boy I barely knew but knew I didn't want to lose I wondered what I would have thought of Andrius in Lithuania. Would I have liked him Would he h...”