And Esme remembered in a rush--the wolfsong, the haunting, lyrical spirals of it in the dawn quiet and the feeling of euphoria that had attended it. Even in recollection the howling uplifted her like the crescendo at the end of a symphony and made her heartbeat quicken.

You can wait as long as you like, pretty one, it won't make any difference. He will never see you as anything more than some victim he has to protect. Why he thinks it his duty to protect you from the inevitable, I do not know... unless he knows something we do not...

I’m saying I love you, Cami. All of that was as real for me as it was for you. I’m asking if you’ll stick this out beside me. I’m willing to lose my badge and even be dishonorably discharged if that’s the case. I just don’t want to lose you.

Oh God, this is my fantasy! Where those just-friend boys suddenly realize they love me.''I don't know if this was like that.''What happened?'He thought for a moment. 'Well. I realized I loved her.'Hannah gasped. 'Oh God, that's so sweet.

I don't like hope very much. In fact, I hate it. It's the crystal meth of emotions. It hooks you fast and kills you hard. It's bad news. The worst. It's sharp sticks and cherry bombs. When hope shows up, it's only a matter of time until someone gets hurt.

Death is my art form--when I fight, I'm a ballerina. Graceful. Chi lacks my grace, but makes up for it in energy and enthusiasm. His fighting style is like breakdancing--strong and frenetic with some really sweet moves. Jo's is . . .the Macarena. Ugly but gets the job done.

I was about to sit down when Kyle’s hand wrapped around my left wrist lightly and pulled up my arm. The suddenness of his touch was startling. I looked at him, confused, and saw fire in his eyes—raw anger I didn’t understand. His eyes looked up at me and penetrated mine.

People talk about books being an escape, but here on the tube, this one feels more like a lifeline...The motion of the train makes her head rattle, but her eyes lock on the words the way a figure skater might choose a focal point as she spins, and just like that, she's grounded again.

So it was a crossroads summer, when the universe seemed to stand perilously still like an egg wobbling on a precipice, a regular rite of passage summer that saw us traverse the hazardous divide between the illusions of boyhood and the far more pernicious deceptions of maturity, et cetera.

But even when I stop crying, even when we fall asleep and I'm nestled in his arms, this will leave another scar. No one will see it. No one will know. But it will be there. And eventually all of the scars will have scars, and that's all I'll be--one big scar of a love gone wrong.

Dorian, I have wings!” “I can see that.” “What am I?” I asked, as chills ran up my spine. “I—I can’t be positive, because I have never seen one. But I think you’re a phoenix,” he said in amazement. “You are so beautiful.

I don't believe everything happens for a reason. But I still search for reasons anyway. It's like I don't want to admit that maybe everything really is totally random...that people are just molecules in the air, bumping into each other and floating away again."-p150, NOTES TO SELF

And now," Eric yelled into his mircophone, "we're going to sing a new song-one we just wrote. This one's for my girlfriend. We've been going out for three weeks, and, damn, our love is true. We're gonna be together forever, baby. This one's called 'Bang You Like a Drum.

Do you ... still believe?''Our very presence here, a Polynesian goddess sitting next to a Zulu thunder god, listening to the song of a Greek siren, should be proof enough that religions can and do coexist.' He looked back at the cross over the entryway. 'And I still do not know.

He must have been handsome when he was alive and was handsome still, although made monstrous by his pallor and her awareness of what he was. His mouth looked soft, his cheekbones as sharp as blades, and his jaw curved, giving him an off-kilter beauty. His black hair a mad forest of dirty curls.