"He would ask nothing else from life if he would be allowed to protect and cherish her for the rest of his."
"He was still thoughtful. 'Do you think any of us ever really knows anyone?' 'Philosophy, Lord Dryden? And yet it's daylight and everyone is still sober."
"Something was stirring in him, though; a bud of comprehension that could very well bloom into forgiveness if left unchecked."
"But she bravely kept her eyes open; she was both lost and found in the soft, burning depths of his eyes."
"Her laugh was wonderful. It was mischief made musical."
"And this is the potency a first kiss should have: it should be earned. The moments leading up to it should be as tense as a crossbow drawn back. The reader should want it as badly as the hero and heroine, and feel as satisfied and transported and transformed as the hero and heroine in the wake of it. There are different ways to use kisses in a romance, but that first kiss is so meaningful, a pinnacle, and can be more intimate than sex."
"He wished for access to all the world's languages at once, for then he would have a better word for how he felt and what she was."
"The one thing she’d been able to count on her entire life was her cleverness. She was so often right. It was humbling and disorienting to realize that she in truth knew nothing at all. One only ever saw a fraction of someone, whatever it was they chose to show you, and extrapolated a whole person from that. And saw them through a prism of one’s own prejudices."