“She wanted to go over and hug his tears away, but she was too frightened.”

“She couldn't remember the last time she hugged someone, really hugged someone.”

“He nodded and curled over his paper, writing quickly. As his words took form on the white page, she got to watch him… and realized she never wanted him to go. She wanted him here beside her forever.”

“She didn't know whether she was running away from something or running to something, but she admitted that deep in her heart she wanted to go home.”

“She was a nice little girl, simple and true, and tremendously frightened of sex. I told her it was beautiful. I wanted to prove this to her. She let me prove it, but I was too impatient and proved nothing.”

“He wanted to put his arms around her, but she had a darkness that seemed to stand beside her like an acquaintance that would not go away.”

“She had promised him she would consider his question [of marrying him] […]. But this was not the case; she was wondering if she were not a cold, hard, priggish person, and, on her at last getting up and going rather quickly back to the house, felt, as she had said to her friend, really frightened at herself.”

“I tore off my mask so as not to lose one of her tears… and she did not run away!… and she did not die!… She remained alive, weeping over me, weeping with me. We cried together! I have tasted all the happiness the world can offer.”

“Most of all she loved that when she hugged him her head would rest neatly just below his chin, where she could feel his breath lightly blowing her hair and tickling her head.”

“She hugged the offender, and forgave the offense:
Sex to the last.”