“I know this woman.”
“Who the hell is she?”
He stared both his brothers down. “She’s mine.”

“A true woman loves a strong man because she knows his weaknesses. She protects as much as she is protected.”

“Isabelle," she said, lightening her tone with an obvious effort, "your loyalty to your friend is understandable --"
"He's not my friend." Isabelle looked over at Jace, who was staring at her in a sort of daze. "He's my brother.”

“And there's a
turbulent moon-ridden girl
or old woman, or both,
dressed in opals and rags, feathers
and torn taffeta,
who knows strange songs
but she is not kind… ”

“Let me tell you 'bout a girl I know
I met her walkin' down a uptown street
She's so fine you know I wished she was mine
I get shook up every time we meet”

““You are a most vexing young woman, you know.” But his face bore a slight, whimsical smile.
“I know,” she replied, feeling her own mouth curve into a matching expression.
He blew out a breath. “As your brother, I could forbid you to go. But you and I both know that, even if I did so, you would do whatever you wish regardless. I suppose I have no choice but to accede to your request.””

“Between a man and a woman both aged fifty there are two full generations, for she might well wed a man in his seventies, and he a girl of twenty.”

“Not long ago a friend of mine opened the door of the garage at her summer cottage, and found a man inside who had hanged himself about two months before; what is more he had been cut down. She is deeply anxious to know (a) why he hanged himself; (b) if he hanged himself or was hanged; (c) who cut him down; (d) what it was about her garage that appealed to his morbid fancy. She will probably never know any of these things. It is thus that life falls short of the movies.”

“Nothing in the universe can hold down that rare individual who clearly realizes that he or she dosen't know what's in the way of his or her happiness, but who is willing to find out.”

“There's in my mind a…
turbulent moon-ridden girl

or old woman, or both,
dressed in opals and rags, feathers

and torn taffeta,
who knows strange songs

but she is not kind.”