“Our minds work alike, she thought. She had found her partner, her equal, the one to work and live and love with her. Her soulmate.”

“She did not send for him until she was afraid; she was not afraid until he undid her work; he did not undo her work until he was past loving her.”

“Protima Gauri (as she renamed herself) had zest for living. She loved her men, her liquor and drugs. She had a large range of her lovers, most of whom she names.”

“Love meant something to her, she dreamt of it, thought of it, wrote of it. It was the one thing in life that had eluded her completely.”

“She had waited all her life for something, and it had killed her when it found her.”

“She's had so little love, Jesse thought, I will drown her in it for the rest of her life.”

“she tapped her finger and nothing happened and she thought she had lost her magic, but it had only changed and it took her awhile to figure it out.”

“she was glad she had been scarred. She said that whoever loved her now would love her true self, and not her pretty face.”

“Oh! She was good as she was fair,
None—none on earth above her!
As pure in thought as angels are:
To know her was to love her.”

“She had grown older. And he loved her more now than he had loved her when he understood her better, when she was the product of her parents. What she was now was what she herself had decided to become.”