“Amy Cahill didn't believe in omens. But black snow was falling, the earth was rumbling beneath her feet, her brother was meowing, and her uncle Alistair was prancing on the beach in pink pajamas.
She had to admit, the signs were not promising.”

“As long as she was falling in love with me, I might as well start making her promises I didn't intend to keep.”

“My dear children!"
Nellie whopped him upside the head with her backpack.
"Ow!" Uncle Alistair curled over, cupping his hand over his good eye.
"Nellie!" Amy said.
"Sorry," Nellie muttered. "I thought he was one of the bad guys.”

“It was not despair, but it seemed to her as if life were passing by, leaving its promises broken and unfulfilled. Yet there were other days when she listened, was led on and deceived by fresh promises which her youth had held out to her.”

“He stared at her, knowing with certainty that he was falling in love. He pulled her close and kissed her beneath a blanket of stars, wondering how on earth he'd been lucky enough to find her.”

“but she realized that she wanted him to know her. She wanted him to understand her, if only because she had strange sense that he was the kind of man she could fall in love with, even if she didn't want to.”

“She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.”

“She didn't love him and he didn't love her; she was like an addiction, and what they were doing had a darkness to it, a weight.”

“Told her she was beautiful. Didn't give up when she didn't believe me.”

“Her curiosity was too much for her. She felt almost as if she could hear the books whispering on the other side of the half-open door. They were promising her a thousand unknown stories, a thousand doors into worlds she had never seen before.”