September had no natural defense against lost things, being one herself. She could not quite have put it into words, but she felt profoundly, at the bottom of her new, shining heart, that she could find lost things. She could make them un-lost if she were brave enough. After all, if enough lost things band together, even in the darkest depths, they aren't really lost at all anymore.

So much light, sweet girl, begins in the dark.

Falling in love is embarrassing. It is not hardcore. It is not part of the scene.

Everything in this place was livid and lurid and living, and when he loved her and hurt her all at once she lived, too, higher and harder than she had thought she could.

Finally, she said: “I’m lonely” — it’s weird but you tell the wolves things, sometimes. You can’t help it, all these old wounds come open and suddenly you’re confessing to a wolf who never says anything back. She said: “I’m lonely,” and they ate her in the street.

My heart yields dividends unseen; thou art my soul's annuity.

I was meeting a mountain. I meant to kiss her in secret. I meant to wed her under the midnight dark. The prettiest mountain you ever saw, sparkling with snow in all the right places, rich with granite and tourmaline and silver, sturdy and sensible and weathered by experience of eons. When she saw me, my mountain's pine trees bristled and the wind in her heights whistled my name. When I saw her, I felt rivers break through the rock of my heart and carve me into a new shape.

Why should I care about you first kiss,' he said. 'You can kiss anyone you like. But sometimes if you wanted to kiss me, that would be all right, too.

How I adore you, Marya. How well I chose. Scold me; deny me. Tell me you want what you want and damn me forever. But don’t leave me.