“Would you favor me with a dance?" Over all the others I was his choice! I curtsied, and he took my hand. Our hands knew each other. Char looked at me, startled. "Have we met before, Lady?”

“"But men still shoot each other, don't they?" I asked hopefully.
"They shot me," he answered, with what I took to be a smile.
"Yes, but that was in a war. Do they still shoot each other over ladies?" I imagined a carpet of prostrate women, over whom shots rang out.”

“Our lovemaking was always risk and promise-for if he held my life in his hands when he lay with me, I held his soul, and knew it.”

“We don't fit in, you and me," he said. "We're both oddities no one knows what to do with. But we fit together." He took her hand, pressed her palm to his, then laced their fingers through each other's. "We fit.”

“If I knew you and you knew me—
If both of us could clearly see,
And with an inner sight divine
The meaning of your heart and mine
I'm sure that we would differ less
And clasp our hands in friendliness:
Our thoughts would pleasantly agree,
If I knew you and you knew me.”

“I handed my passport to the immigration officer, and he looked at it and looked at me and said, "What are you?"”

“Then let us turn now — you to me
And I to you — and hand to hand
Clasp, even though our fable be
Of strangers met in a strange land
Who pause, perturbed, then speak and know
That speech, half lost, can yet amaze
Joy at the root; then suddenly grow
Silent, and on each other gaze.”

“He leans over and takes her hand. With the other he touches her face. ‘You your best thing, Sethe. You are.’ His holding fingers are holding hers.

‘Me? Me?”

“I had killed over twenty before the German major said he would make them give up. I covered him with my automatic and told him if he didn't make them stop firing I would take off his head next. And he knew I meant it. He told me if I didn't kill him, and if I stopped shooting the others in the trench, he would make them surrender.
He blew a little whistle and they came down and began to gather around and throw down their guns and belts. All but one of them came off the hill with their hands up, and just before that one got to me he threw a little hand grenade which burst in the air in front of me.
I had to touch him off. The rest surrendered without any more trouble. There were nearly 100 of them.”

“Historically inaccurate.' Adrian gestured at me with his other hand, the one not on my shoulder. "Who the hell looks at you and says 'historically inaccurate'?”