“Perfect night, wasn't it?"

"It could have been." I smiled up at him. "But you were there.”

“He was looking at her from behind the smiling that wasn't smiling but was something you were not supposed to see beyond.”

“It was surprising that you could spend hours in the middle of the night pretending things were okay, and know in thirty seconds of daylight that simply wasn't so”

“The night you gave me my birthday party… you were a young Lieutenant and I was a fragrant phantom, wasn't I? And it was a radiant night, a night of soft conspiracy and the trees agreed that it was all going to be for the best.”

“I've been singing for six years. I've been in and out of the studios with top producers, but it wasn't something I was ready to express to the public or to the press. I wasn't ready to come out. I wanted to perfect my voice and be 100 percent positive that I could come out right.”

“I tell ya, I grew up in a tough neighborhood. The other night a guy pulled a knife on me. I could see it wasn't a real professional job. There was butter on it.”

“Take back the smile and the night, take it all back, I wish I could.”

“Esther looked at him with an expression that would have been a smile if it had not been infinitely dreary and absent; then she said, simply and finally:
"But George, I don't love you, I love him."”

“You could have had anything else in the world, and you asked for me."
She smiled up at him. Filthy as he was, covered in blood and dirt, he was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.
"But I don't want anything else in the world.”

“You fell in love with someone because of the tilt of his smile, or because he could make you laugh, or in this case, because he made you believe that you were the only one who could save him.”