“…he often wondered when exactly her feeling for him finally overwhelmed those she'd had for Kevin…
He wasn't sure; capturing a specific instant like that was no more possible than locating a specific drop of water in the ocean.”

“He never had really been able to understand what it was that she wanted him for…although he felt certain that she wanted him for something real, that he filled some need for her, as she did for him, which could for lack of a more specific term be called love.”

“Of course she'd told him she would, but if the man hadn't registered her sarcasm, then he wasn't making full use of his ears.”

“His feelings for Adam were an oil spill; he'd let them overflow and now there wasn't a damn place in the ocean that wouldn't catch fire if he dropped a match.”

“He wondered if she'd mind if he threw her down on the blanket and tore off her clothing. (..) She looked heartbreakingly innocent. Alex sighed. She'd probably mind.”

“Like her father, he wasn't comfortable sharing his thoughts and feelings. She tried to explain that she needed to be closer to him, but it had never seemed to make a difference.”

“He was growing up. Soon he would be a man. He wondered what that would mean. Surely he could not have more required of him as an adult that had been required of him as a child. There could not be more.”

“The thought of Christmas overwhelms him. He no longer looks forward to the holiday; he wants only to be on the other side of the season. His impatience makes him feel that he is incontrovertibly, finally, an adult.”

“In avoiding specific goals he had avoided specific limitations. For the time being the world, life itself, could be his chosen field.”

“She had made the choice for him - in a moment of flight and panic, but she had made it - not realizing that her Jace would rather die than be like this, and that she'd been not so much saving his life as damning him to an existence he would despise.”