"No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now."

"The clock chimed five. It sounded almost celebratory as they stood there, hands clasped between them like the meeting of continents. Colton’s mouth was soft and warm, sunlight on silk. Danny was swallowing light. It dived down inside of him until he imagined it bursting out of every pore."

"Now I am going to reveal to you something which is very pure, a totally white thought. It is always in my heart; it blooms at each of my steps... The Dance is love, it is only love, it alone, and that is enough... I, then, it is amorously that I dance: to poems, to music but now I would like to no longer dance to anything but the rhythm of my soul."

"I think it’s the whole ‘bad boy who’s so good but destined to break your heart’ fantasy. Which doesn’t sound like much of a fantasy when you put the broken heart part in the picture, but it is. It so is."

"Though he wouldn’t take it or offer it back, she gave. She squeezed it into him and held it there. She accepted him. She loved him in his wretchedness, kissed his ragged cheek, and called him /father./."