“She whom I love is hard to catch and conquer,
Hard, but O the glory of the winning were she won!”

“Unfortunately, it appeared that she was going to be around when they learned the hard way that interstellar wars of aggression were much easier to lose than to win.”

“Before she knew what she was about, she was jumping about like a crazy woman, yelling, “Yes! Yes! I win!”

“You don’t win,” Anthony snapped.

“Oh, it feels like I’ve won,” she reveled.”

“My love for you is a prayer, she thought. Love is the only prayer I know. She thought she had never loved him so much as at this moment, when she heard the convent door close, hard and final, and felt the wall shutting her in.”

“Does she stay because she loves him as meat loves salt? Or does she stay because he has now promised her the kingdom? It is hard for her to tell the difference.”

“It's easy to fall in love. The hard part is finding someone to catch you.”

“She wanted him to tell her that when you love someone so hard and so fierce, it was all right to do things that you knew were wrong.”

“Well, it's simple to love someone," she said. "But it's hard to know when you need to say it out loud.”

“… I wouldn't have her job'. Those who profess unquenchable love for the sovereign are adamant that she press on in a task that they consider killingly hard.”

“Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears
Her noblest work she classes, O:
Her prentice han' she tried on man,
An' then she made the lasses, O.”