“I thought I'd stumbled on Sleeping Beauty and her ugly sister,' said another voice, 'waiting for the kiss of true love to wake them from their slumbers. Forgive me if I didn't oblige.”

“Do not wake me from this slumber, but be assured that just as I have wept much, I have also wandered many roads with my thoughts.”

“You said go to her, and I let pride stand in my way. You said she needed me, and I didn't believe. You said love her, and I thought it would be easy.”

“I didn't know," he said. "I didn't know you needed me."
Her voice shook. "I always need you”

“Give me love, like her
Cos lately I've been waking up alone.
The pain splatters teardrops on my shirt.
I told you I'd let them go.”

“Wake up, Caitlin, Mr. Lensing had said. But what he didn't under­stand was that this dreamland was preferable, walking through this life half-sleeping, everything at arm's length or farther away. I understood those mermaids. I didn't care if they sang to me. All I wanted was to block out all the human voices as they called me name again and again, pulling me upward into light, to drown.”

“At night, when I couldn't sleep, I'd sometimes carry on silent arguments with those people. I'd be screaming at them, telling them how much I detested their blind, thoughtless, automatic acquiescence to it all, their simpleminded patriotism, their prideful ignorance, their love-it-or-leave it platitudes, how they were sending me off to fight a war they didn't understand and didn't want to understand.”

“From the moment you said, "Why haven't you kissed me yet" I knew I'd wipe that paint from your lips.”

“True love, to me, is when she's the first thought that goes through your head when you wake up and the last thought that goes through your head before you go to sleep.”

“O eyes long laid in happy sleep!
O happy sleep, that lightly fled!
O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!
O love, thy kiss would wake the dead!”