“Swearing relieves the feelings—that is what swearing does. I explained this to my aunt on one occasion, but it didn't answer with her. She said I had no business to have such feelings.”

“She had run down and down and down, and had at last reached a point where medicines no longer had any helpful effect upon her. I said I knew I could put her upon her feet in a week. It brightened her up, it filled her with hope, and she said she would do everything I told her to do. So I said she must stop swearing and drinking, and smoking and eating for four days, and then she would be all right again. And it would have happened just so, I know it; but she said she could not stop swearing, and smoking, and drinking, because she had never done those things. So there it was. She had neglected her habits, and hadn’t any. Now that they would have come good, there were none in stock. She had nothing to fall back on. She was a sinking vessel, with no freight in her to throw overboard and lighten ship withal.”

“I swear, I end up feeling empty, like you've taken something out of me and I have to search my body for scars.”

“I say I'm in love with her. What does that mean? It means I review my future and my past in the light of this feeling. It is though I wrote in a foreign language that I am suddenly able to read. Wordlessly, she explains me to myself. Like genius, she is ignorant of what she does.”

“I know," she said, guessing my thoughts. "I know exactly how you feel."
"Does it get easier?" I asked. Unlike Sydney, Olena had an answer.
"Yes. But you'll never be the same.”

“I swear on the Angel." He ducked his head down, kissed her cheek. "The hell with that. I swear on us.”

“Single Mind:
If I love you with all my heart, she said, what will you give me? & then she stopped & said I didn't have to answer that because she was going to do it anyway.”

“Belief is with them mechanical, voluntary: they believe what they are paid for — they swear to that which turns to account. Do you suppose, that after years spent in this manner, they have any feeling left answering to the difference between truth and falsehood?”

“Grim sighed heavily. "I swear I'm getting a migraine."
"My mom suffers from those a lot, too."
"Being around you, I imagine she does.”

“If you ever leave me again,’ she said, her eyes stinging, ‘I swear to all the gods-‘
Percy had the nerve to laugh. Suddenly the lump of heated emotions melted inside Annabeth.
‘Consider me warned,’ Percy said. ‘I missed you, too.”