The tales lovers tell each other about how they met are hushed and secret things. They change year by year, for we all meet many times as we grow up and become different and new and exciting people--and this never stops, even for a minute, even when we are ninety.

Let us be greedy together; let us hoard. Let us hit each other with birch branches and lock each other in dungeons; let us drink each other's blood in the night and betray each other in the sun. Let us lie and lust and take hundreds of lovers; let us dance until snow melts between us. Let us steal and eat until we grow fat and roll in the pleasures of life, clutching each other for purchase.

You can't fix a bad man like a bad staircase.

I am sustained by Being Necessary.

Being Necessary is food no less than cabbages and strawberry pies.

What’s the difference between being dead and having a boyfriend? Death sticks around.

Love me, and I will laugh for you, and if you can make me laugh, my laughter will, quite simply, ransom the whole of the world from death.

Of all the Fairy strangeness she had known, this seemed suddenly both the strangest and least strange of all. How she would have liked to be looked after like that, cared for and watched over. And yet at the same time, she understood the Whelk, and wished she could grow big enough to hold on to everyone she loved at once. To keep them safe and with her always and know their secret needs well enough to answer them.

When spring comes, I shall meet you at the Municipal Library, and you will see how much I've learned! You'll be so proud of me and love me so!''Oh, Ell, but I do love you! Right now!''One can always bear more love,' the Wyverary purred.