“She is a goddess,’ said Ambrose, drunkenly and stoutly. ‘…And she wants me. She’s the pursuer…She’s the epitome of woman, not,’ he said, ‘not a second-hand bundle of coy erogeneity draped,’ he said, ‘in an all-too-diaphanous robe,’ he said, ‘of pudeur.”

“I want you," she said.
"I told you so," he said.”

“Each time he suggested they get married, she said no. They were too happy, precariously so, and she wanted to guard that bond; she feared that marriage would flatten it into a prosaic partnership.”

“"You really want to know what else it was my mom said about you?" he asked.
She shook her head.
He didn't seem to notice. "She said you'd break my heart."”

“Oh Alexander," she said, "what do you want from me…"
"Everything!" he whispered fiercely.”

“I can't do this to you,' he said, drawing back. Emily put her hand on his and pulled the gun to her temple. 'Then do it for me,' she said.”

“For a long time the Baldwynn did not speak. At last he said, “Will you serve the Goddess now? Knowingly and lovingly, in sweet obedience and humble acknowledgment of all that she is?”
“No.” The word was a pebble in her mouth. She spat it out. “Not now, not tomorrow, not if I live to be a million. Never.”
The Baldwynn stopped and took her hands in his. “Dear child,” he said. “I feared there was no hope for you.””

“A woman told me her child was autistic, and I thought she said artistic. So I said, 'Oh great. I'd like to see some of the things he's done.”

“When the woman took the earbud, he didn't ask another question. She was a woman on a mission as she placed the tiny device in her ear and said, "This is Special Agent Abby Cameron. Let me talk to Macey McHenry.”

“Ah," she said to herself, "want of an object to live for—that's all is the matter with me!”