“She had been proud of his decision to serve his country, her heart bursting with love and admiration the first time she saw him outfitted in his dress blues.”

“He loved his country and his country loved him. He lived for her honour, and she will cherish his memory.”

“She admired him; she was used to clutching her hands together in his wake and heaving audible sighs.”

“"But tell me how it is that she could be so beautiful without any heart at all — without any place even for a heart to live in." "I cannot quite tell," she said; "but I am sure she would not look so beautiful if she did not take means to make herself look more beautiful than she is. And then, you know, you began by being in love with her before you saw her beauty … But the chief thing that makes her beautiful is this: that, although she loves no man, she loves the love of any man; and when she finds one in her power, her desire to bewitch him and gain his love (not for the sake of his love either, but that she may be conscious anew of her own beauty, through the admiration he manifests), makes her very lovely—with a self-destructive beauty…"”

“His mother had been the world to him, and although she had done her best to prepare him, he had been too young to fully understand what death meant—until she was gone, and the great, raw, gaping hole in his heart could not be filled or patched or mended. He looked for her everywhere, even after he had been shown her body—looked and looked and she could not be found.”

“His steady gaze held hers. His blue eyes were very dark, uniquely so. She had known people before with blue eyes, but they had always been light blue. Will's were the color of the sky just on the edge of night.”

“It is just that she was fifteen once for the first time, and Peter walked across her heart and left his footprints there.”

“When he loved his bride it was not a queen he loved, but rather the girl as she might have been if she had not been destroyed in her childhood.”

“Sabetha threw her own shoes and costume components on the tiles near the bath. She retained only her black hose and a dressing gown. Locke did his best to look like he wasn’t staring, and she did an admirable job of pretending she wasn’t encouraging him.”

“Her joy with him was like nothing she had ever experienced. His love for her felt like a miracle.”