Being a cheerful hobbit, he had not needed hope, as long as despair could be postponed.

Ah, God, Lys" he breathed, and she opened her eyes to look up at him. She was the love of his heart, his true partner in both work and life, and the idea of losing her to the violence of the world they lived in scared the living shit out of him.But her smile lit her eyes, her face, and he pushed the darkness away and let himself grin back at her like the damn fool that he was. This moment-now-was perfect, and he wasn't going to let his fears interfere.

Somewhere fate laughs in her far-off country, because now I am the human and it is Grace I will lose again and again, immer wieder, always the same, every winter, losing more of her each year, unless I find a cure.

But hope, I can tell you, is an exhausting emotion; perhaps, along with fear, the most exhausting of all. It is like juggling eggs: the hope is the shell, and inside is despair. A single crack and the despair might spill everywhere, stain everything.

Things change after you die, though, I guess because dying is the loneliest thing you can do.

[I]t is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions.

She whistled when she noticed my back. I assume because of my injuries. I mean, my ass just isn't that spectacular.

At that moment there was a knock on the door, and Sam came in. He ran to Frodo and took his left hand, awkwardly and shyly. He stroked it gently and then he blushed and turned hastily away.

Where are we?” I interrupted Gregory as he spoke with the other angels. He looked around. “Intercourse, Pennsylvania.” I snorted—he said “intercourse”. What a great name for a town. I needed to move to Intercourse, Pennsylvania. I wondered if there was a Climax, Pennsylvania? Gregory’s lips twitched. “Yes, there’s a Climax, Pennsylvania. It takes about four hours to get there by car from Intercourse.” I didn’t know what was more funny, the fact that Climax was four hours from Intercourse or that the two angels standing beside Gregory had expressions of horror on their faces. An archangel, the archangel, had just made a sex joke. Damn, I loved him. “I can get there faster,” I choked out between laughter that nearly brought me to my knees. “Because four hours from intercourse to climax is cause for immediate medical attention.” He waved a hand. “For paltry humans, maybe. Four hours for an angel is a quickie.” Those other two angels looked as if they were ready to sink through the ground. “Oh, please, can we have a quickie? I’ve got four hours to spare, and we are in Intercourse. It’s fate.

So it comes to this: I would have lost her either way. If Cole hadn't reinfected her, I would have lost her in the hospital bed. And now Cole's wolf tozin pumps through her veins, and I lose her to the woods, like I lose everything I love.So here is me, and I am a boy watched--by her parents' suspicious eyes, since they cannot prove that I kidnapped Grace but believe nonetheless--and I am a boy watchful--because Tom Culpeper's bitterness is growing palpable in this tiny town and I will NOT bury Grace's body--and I am a boy waiting--for the heat and the fruitfulness of summer, waiting to see who will walk out of those woods for me. Waiting for my lovely summer girl.

We can be heroes just for one day

I get to see her at night.""No deal.""That's the only deal. I sleep over.""She's my daughter.""She's the love of my life". My heart was pumping so damn fast I needed to see her. David was searching my eyes.I let him see the truth. I needed her. That was the only way."Fine, but only you. Logan can't start sleeping over, too.""He'll try."David groaned. "You two, you just storm your way in-""We're family to her. We took her in when you let her go. We protected her from that woman.

They said a lot of things to each other that night, but nothing that involved words.

Come live with us, Diana. Don't argue. Just say yes."Diana looked at the ground to hide her emotions. Then she said, "Would I have to be hearing you two going at it night and day?

He envied straight couples the easy openness of their relationships. At that moment, he would've given anything to know what it was like to take his lover's hand without a second's consideration for what anyone else might think, or do.

My friend lost his mother when we were at college. I spent a lot of nights talking with him. Lot of nights." He pauses. "I know what it's like. You don't just get over it. And it doesn't make any difference if you're supposedly a "grown-up". And it never goes away,

Sometimes for our sanity own sanity we just have to look at the bigger picture.

He felt something trickle down his face and he wiped it away irritably. When he looked at the back of his hand, he found trails of red. He had never cried in his life; in fact, he could not cry with no tear ducts. But now, at last, he was. He was crying tears of blood. For her.

I continued to move my fingers across his skin exactly as I had before, but I needed to make a decision. I had reached for him, but I could back out of it by trailing my fingers down his arm and settling my hand in his, like I wanted us to be friends.I didn't want us to be friends.Ever so slowly, I slid my hand up his sleeve, across his shoulder, and up his neck to cradle his jaw, prickly with stubble.

You have no idea how much I appreciate your friendship,” Jules said. Sam held out several bills. “Yeah, actually I do,” he said. “It’s probably as much as I appreciate yours.

A little girl learns about men through her Father." Sam Cameron

Yes! That's what all our talk about a decent world has been... just so much bullshit.""We did say it was still only a dream.""And a bloody useless one at that. Life's a fuck-up and it's never going to change.

One day a wolf bit a man and the man caught it. Magic or science, it's all the same. The only thing magical about it is that we can't explain it." ~Sam

I’ve always had a lifelong interest in spirit. I was an 8-year-old boy – an 8-year-old adorable little boy. I just understood my grandfather had a ‘knowingness.’ I didn’t know the word psychic then.” (during interview with Sam Liebowitz on the Conscious Consultant Hour)

How many beers do y'all think it takes before one internationally scientist turns to another and says, 'Dude, bet you twenty bucks I can levitate a frog with a magnet?' ' Sam drawled.

I remembered the pain as clearly as if I were shifting — the pain of loss. I felt the agony of the single moment that I lost myself. Lost what made me Sam. The part of me that could remember Grace's name.

Sam came around the back of the car and stopped dead when he saw me. "Oh my God, what is that?"I used my thumb and middle finger to flick the multicoloured pom-pom on top of my head. "In my language, we call it a hat. It keeps my ears warm.""Oh my God," Sam said again, and closed the distance between us. He cupped my face in his hands and studied me. "It's horribly cute." He kissed me, looked at the hat, and then he kissed me again.

You're not going to die," I told her, lifting my head to look at her. "I'm not done writing songs about you yet.

I mean, we don’t have to worry about it until winter, anyway,” she said. “I was just wondering if you felt cured.”I didn’t know what to tell her. I didn’t feel cured. I felt like what Cole said —almost cured. A war survivor with a phantom limb. I still felt that wolf that I’d been: living in my cells, sleeping uneasily, waiting to be coaxed out by weather or a rush of adrenaline or a needle in my veins. I didn’t know if that was real or suggested. I didn’t know if one day I would feel secure in my skin, taking my human body for granted.“You look cured,” Grace said. Just her face was visible at the end of the shower curtain, looking in at me. She grinned and I yelled. Grace reached in just far enough to shut off the tap.“I’m afraid,” she said, whipping the shower curtain open all the way and presenting me with my towel, “this is the sort of thing you’ll have to put up with in your old age.” I stood there, dripping, feeling utterly ridiculous, Grace standing opposite, smiling with her challenge. There was nothing for it but to get over the awkwardness. Instead of taking the towel, I took her chin with my wet fingers and kissed her. Water from my hair ran down my cheeks and onto our lips. I was getting her shirt all wet, but she didn’t seem to mind. A lifetime of this seemed rather appealing. I said gallantly, “That better be a promise.

We were miles away from our real lives.

Sam reached his hand toward mine, and I automatically put my fingers in his. With a guilty little smile, he pulled my hand toward his nose and took a sniff, and then another one. His smile widened, though it was still shy. It was absolutely adorable, and my breath got caught somewhere in my throat.

I never knew there were so many different ways to say good-bye

I saw her face then, and I recognized something of myself in her expression. Her eyes flicked over the shelves, seeking possibilities for escape.

Forever?"Sam's lips smiled, but above his grin, his yellow eyes turned sad, as if he knew it was a lie."Longer.

Long after the other voices had dropped away, Sam kept howling, very soft and slow.When he finally fell silent, the night felt dead. Sitting was intolerable. I stood up, paced, clenched and unclenched my hands into fists. Finally I took the guitar that Sam had played and I screamed and smashed it into pieces on Dad's desk.

He was every angel and every devil.

I remembered standing in the middle of the street in front of The Crooked Bookshelf, filled with the certainty of a future. I had heard the wolves howling behind the house and remembered how glad I had been to be human.

The silence was suddenly too charged, his face too beautiful in the light.

Sam, there comes a time when the world no longer needs heroes. And then the true hero knows to walk away.

I still watch her now, like I always did, and she watches me, her brown eyes looking out from a wolf's face. This is the story of a boy who used to be a wolf, and a girl who became one.I won't let this be my last good-bye. I've folded one thousand paper cranes of me and Grace, and I've made my wish. I will find a cure. And then I will find Grace.

Unable to keep myself from temptation any longer, I reached up and ran my hand through his hair, which as much as he tried, never looked anything other than curly. I further melted into him when he started stroking my arm. Up and down, repeatedly, in sweet sensual delight. I tried to steady my breathing by taking deep, measured breaths. I refused to let him know just how much his touch was effectual and tantalizing.

Looking at Sam was fine but it was the tasting I enjoyed most. Like the dew that watered fresh blossoms, Sam’s lips moved and left their mark against my heated skin. His scent of body wash and manliness– too inviting– left a delicious taste behind leaving me to desire the more I know I’ll never get.

Are you following me?" He asked."Us?" I was the first to speak. "Um, maybe. Hi there. How are you tonight?"He looked at me like I might be a bit crazy.

No onslaught more fierce was ever seen in the savage world of beasts, where some desperate small creature armed with little teeth, alone, will spring upon a tower of horn and hide that stands above its fallen mate.

Goodbye, master, my dear! Forgive your Sam. He'll come back to this spot when the job's done - if he manages it. And then he'll not leave you again. Rest you quiet till I come; and may no foul creature come anigh you! And if the Lady could hear me and give me one wish, I would wish to come back and find you again. Good bye!

Stained-glass windows glowed faintly in the moonlight streaming through, illuminating the sculpture of Christ on the cross that hung above the altar. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Then the sculpture seemed to move, and Christ’s body twisted on the cross to look directly at him. ...Jesus, the son of God and his saviour, seemed be smiling at him.

Sam was staring at Claire with about the same amazement as his brother had shown. Claire didn’t seem to realize it, or else she was too preoccupied to think of it, but she was the second thunderbolt that had fallen on this long-hidebound household in as many days. First one of the hated race of doctors had been shoehorned in on them as the only thing that might get them out of an already nightmarish situation, and now this matter-of-fact slip of a girl had pushed into it of her own accord. They must have felt like the world was coming down around their ears.

I feel like I've been through a lot in the past couple of years, But I've kept pretty stable. That's because I channel that emotion into performance. I can handle emotion as long as it's only a song. It works for me, and I don't want to change it. I don't have anything left for writing.

If you're putting that energy into performance," he said, "you're also getting it back out again, right? You're giving so you can receive." He spread his arms wide. "If you were writing songs with it, you'd be holed up in your room in the middle of the night, scribbling them in a notebook and feeling self-important. You'd think you were getting it out, but really you'd be keeping it inside and quiet. You'd take what upset you and turn it into art, and now it would fester, because you think other people ought to share your outrage at what happened to you.

Be careful, Hally.""Of what? The truth? I seem to be the only one around here who is prepared to face it.

I got the groceries and lugged them all the way to Akinli’s dorm, running slightly behind because I couldn’t get into the building on my own. The university required ID cards to get into the dorms after six, and since I wasn’t an actual student, I had to wait for someone else to come along and scan his so I could piggyback in.“You need some help?” the boy asked, his eyes lingering on my mouth.I shook my head no.“Aww, come on. That’s way too heavy for you.”He came closer, and again I cursed our natural appeal. I wasn’t in danger exactly, and I knew that, but it didn’t make these encounters any less uncomfortable. I shook my head again.“No, really, which floor are you on? I can—”“Hey, Kahlen!” I looked up to see Akinli walking down the hall. His button-up was open over the gray shirt beneath it, but I was thrilled to see that he’d at least put one on. “I was starting to worry. Hey, Sam.”“Hey.” The boy gave Akinli a look and headed toward the stairwell, his displeasure at Akinli’s arrival clear. In the meantime, I felt my mood lift significantly. I was now officially on my first date.

But I knew very well how the persona you chose to present to the world could be very different from what was inside.I knew how grief could make you behave in ways you couldn’t even begin to understand.

What do you think we should do about Sampson?" I asked."I would have to say...stop him," Sam said."How?" I asked her."Someone who is as powerful and as smart and crazy as he is should do it.""Okay, but who?""Well...you should.""So you think I'm crazy?" I asked her.

For as long as I've known him, Sam has been trying to out-run his demons. But he can't see the truth. His problems - they never sleep, never take a break. They'll wear him down before he can wear them out.

You got beat up. Bones and bruises heal. Those girls didn't win because they didn't do what they wanted. They wanted to break you. I was already broken."You're not broken at all.

Wie lange braucht man jeden Tag, bis man sich kennt.""How long it takes us, each day, to know each other.

Jeez, you’re strong.” And you, Sam, are a conversational reject.