“I wonder if your mother was frightened by Peter Pan before you were born?”

“You are as ordinary as spring,' he murmured. 'As powerless as sunlight.' He ran his fingertips down her neck. 'And when I touch you, I burn,' he said, making her heart stop and a flare of wild panic light inside her. He was too close; he was getting to her.”

“I wonder if your mother was frightened by Peter Pan before you were born?”

“Words were only an approximation of meaning. The meaning escaped between the words, dissolved, disappeared, like fog fading away between iron bars.”

“I don't care much for diamonds,' Nicola had told him.'Have you ever been offered any?' he had asked, and he had been making fun of her, his face mocking.'Not that I can remember,' Nicola had admitted calmly.'And how would an offer be received?' he had asked, as though he knew the answer.'With a kick in the teeth,' Nicola had said, meeting his eye.”

“When men learnt to talk in the beginning of the civilised word they used language not as a means of communication alone but as a means of excluding others--using it as a way of setting themselves apart and shutting out strangers.”