I kiss her. I kiss her and kiss her. I try not to bite her lip. She tastes like vodkahoney.

Had he learned nothing from all those years of teaching Hawthorne? Through story after story he’d led his boys to consider the folly of obsession with purity – its roots sunk deep in pride, flowering condemnation and violence against others and self.

Melville to Hawthorne: "In your stories, you seem to understand that the dramatic moments come not when a character must choose between right and wrong buy when he must choose between two wrongs.