“They were both more than twenty-seven in those enthusiastic years of nineteen hundred and thirty-five, yet neither had as much as ever kissed a girl. Not that kissing was much in favour in that district. Reading about lovers kissing, Tarry often reflected on the fact that he had never seen anyone kissing anyone, except poor old Peter Toole whom he once saw kissing a corpse in a wakehouse in the hope of getting a couple of glasses of whiskey.”

“Give me a kiss, and to that kiss a score;
Then to that twenty, add a hundred more:
A thousand to that hundred: so kiss on,
To make that thousand up a million.
Treble that million, and when that is done,
Let's kiss afresh, as when we first begun.”

“A first kiss after five months means more than a first kiss after five minutes.”

“The kiss that was pressed against his own mouth was reverent, the contact no heavier than the warm, still air in the room. It was the consummate lover’s kiss, the kind of thing he had wanted even more than the hot sex they’d just had.”

“His kisses were gifts. He kissed with everything he had, with power and passion and hunger and love. He held nothing back, giving everything, exposing everything.”

“Just once, I'd like to find a boy. And I like him and he likes me. And we have a laugh and the kissing's really good and there's no-one getting in the way of the laughing and the kissing. Is that too much to ask?”

“She grabbed him by both ears and kissed him quickly, then ran away.
Don stared after her, rubbing his mouth. Girls, he reflected, were much odder than dragons. Probably another race entirely.”

“He kissed me hard and I kissed him back harder, like it was the end of an era that had lasted all of my life.”

“When lovers kiss on the cheeks, it is because they are searching, feeling for one another's lips. Lovers are made by a kiss.”

“You should not take a fellow eight years old
And make him swear to never kiss the girls.”