“Victor's unfortunate choice it was always to mis-see, to mis-hear, to misjudge. He read softness into her because of the softness of her voice, when she was only remembering. His was the self-centered chaos of childhood. All looks and thoughts, loves and hatreds, were directed at him. Softness was softness towards him, weakness was weakness in the face of his strength. He preheard answers and listened not. He was full-coloured and brilliant—all outside of him was pale.”

“Tessa was laying on her side, her brown hair spread over the pillow, watching Will, whose face was bent over the pages, with a look of tenderness in her eyes, a tenderness mirrored in the softness of Will's voice as he read.”

“Dries his wet face with her soft hair.”
Umida siccat mollibus ora comis.

“I love you dammit,"she brushed her lips teasingly against his.

"How much?" He made a slight sound, as if the soft kiss had affected him intensely.

"Without limit. Beyond forever.”

“He touched her as he usually touched his beloved violin, with a soft and urgent grace that left her breathless.”

“Aubrey's voice when he answered was soft. "I'm one of the reasons they wouldn't dare.”

“And His that gentle voice we hear,
Soft as the breath of even.”

“Unless in fact he had a very dim memory of her and the photograph had blown on the tiny little ember of his connection with his granny, like a faint orange glow in a heap of soft grey ash, and for a moment he really could remember when he had sat on his granny’s lap and smiled at her and patted her wrinkly old face — his mother said he smiled at her and she was really pleased.”

“She stood there bright as the sun on that California coast.
He was a Midwestern boy on his own.
She looked at him with those soft eyes, so innocent and blue.
He knew right then he was too far from home.
He was too far from home.”

“a man would know the women he was meant to be with because she made him weak. Till he claimed her and she made him strong.”