""Bella?" I turned and he was leaning toward me, his pale, glorious face just inches from mine. My heart stopped beating. "Sleep well," he said. His breath blew in my face, stunning me."

"About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was part of him — and I didn't know how dominant that part might be — that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him."

"Don't be offended, but you seem to be one of those people who just attract accidents like a magnet. So... try not to fall into the ocean or get run over or anything, all right?"

"People can't smell blood," he contradicted. "Well, I can — that's what makes me sick. It smells like rust... and salt."

"What if I'm not a superhero? What if I'm the bad guy?"

"I decided as long as I was going to hell, I might as well do it thoroughly."

"It would be more...prudent for you not to be my friend," he explained. "But I'm tired of trying to stay away from you, Bella."

"But can your truck make it there on one tank of gas?" [...] "I don't see how that is any of your business." Stupid, shiny Volvo owner. "The wasting of finite resources is everyone's business."

""Do you want a ride to Seattle?" "With who?" I asked, mystified. "Myself, obviously." He enunciated every syllable, as if he were talking to someone mentally handicapped."

"Only in a town this small would a father know when the high school dances were."

"I wasn't interesting. And he was. Interesting...and brilliant...and mysterious...and perfect...and beautiful...and possibly able to lift full-sized vans with one hand."

"I distracted myself [...] by thinking about Mike and Eric, and the obvious difference in how teenage boys responded to me here. [...] Perhaps it was because I was a novelty here, where novelties were few and far between. Possibly my crippling clumsiness was seen as endearing rather than pathetic, casting me as a damsel in distress. [...] I wasn't sure if I didn't prefer being ignored."

"I'd never given much thought to how I would die — though I'd had reason enough in the last few months — but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this."

"I felt excited to go to school, and that scared me. I knew it wasn't the stimulating learning environment I was anticipating, or seeing my new set of friends. If I was being honest with myself, I knew I was eager to get to school because I would see Edward Cullen. And that was very, very stupid."

""Hasn't anyone ever told you? Life isn't fair." "I believe I have heard that somewhere before," he agreed dryly."

"When he touched me, it stung my hand as if an electric current had passed through us."

""Ladies first, partner?" Edward asked. I looked up to see him smiling a crooked smile so beautiful that I could only stare at him like an idiot. "Or I could start, if you wish." The smile faded; he was obviously wondering if I was mentally competent."

"His hair was dripping wet, disheveled — even so, he looked like he'd just finished shooting a commercial for hair gel. His dazzling face was friendly, open, a slight smile on his flawless lips. But his eyes were careful."

"As far as I was aware, he'd never shot the gun on the job. But he kept it ready. When I came here as a child, he would always remove the bullets as soon as he walked in the door. I guess he considered me old enough now not to shoot myself by accident, and not depressed enough to shoot myself on purpose."

"Forks was literally my personal hell on Earth."

"So, did you stab Edward Cullen with a pencil or what?"

"Every one of them was chalky pale, the palest of all the students living in this sunless town. Paler than me, the albino."

"It looked like clouds and a sense of humor didn't mix. A few months of this and I'd forget how to use sarcasm."

"I tried to be diplomatic, but mostly I just lied a lot."

"I can do this, I lied to myself feebly. No one was going to bite me."

"Where was the feel of the institution? ... Where were the chain link fences, the metal detectors?"

"Good luck tended to avoid me."

"It was beautiful, of course; I couldn't deny that."

"When I landed in Port Angeles, it was raining. I didn't see it as an omen — just unavoidable. I'd already said my goodbyes to the sun."

"I was wearing my favorite shirt — sleeveless, white eyelet lace. It was a farewell gesture. My carry-on item was a parka."

"When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it's not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end."

"Speaking about Twilight, King said that the books are "really not about vampires and werewolves. They're about how the love of a girl can turn a bad boy good." Still, the 65-year-old opted to read the latest buzzy titles out of a professional interest."

"Twilight, again. Another ending. No matter how perfect the day is, it always has to end."

"Do you want me to bolt the doors so you can massacre the unsuspecting townsfolk?" I whispered conspiratorially. "And where do you fit into that scheme?" He glared. "Oh, I'm with the vampires, of course."

""When someone wants to kill you, you're brave as a lion - and then when someone mentions dancing..." He shook his head."

"I can't always be Lois Lane," I insisted. "I want to be Superman, too."

"Afraid of a needle. Oh, a sadistic vampire, intent on torturing her to death, sure, no problem, she runs off to meet him. An IV, on the other hand..."

"It's been almost a century that Edward's been alone. Now he's found you. You can't see the changes that we see, we who have been with him for so long. Do you think any of us want to look into his eyes for the next hundred years if he loses you?"

"You're wrong, you know," he said quietly. "What?" I gasped. "I can feel what you're feeling now — and you are worth it."

""Vampires like baseball?" "It's the American pastime," he said with mock solemnity."

""I love you," I whispered. "You are my life now," he answered simply."

"Yeah, it's an off day when I don't get somebody telling me how edible I smell."

"For almost ninety years I've walked among my kind, and yours ... all the time thinking I was complete in myself, not realizing what I was seeking. And not finding anything, because you weren't alive yet."

"Bring on the shackles. I'm your prisoner."

"If I could dream at all, it would be about you. And I'm not ashamed of it."

"And so the lion fell in love with the lamb..." he murmured. I looked away, hiding my eyes as I thrilled to the word. "What a stupid lamb," I sighed. "What a sick, masochistic lion."

"Bella, I don't know if I could live with myself if I ever hurt you. You don't know how it's tortured me. [...] The thought of you still, white, cold ... to never see you blush scarlet again, or see that flash of intuition in your eyes when you see through my pretenses ... it would be unendurable. [...] You are the most important thing to me now. The most important thing to me ever."

"You are exactly my brand of heroin."

"I'm the world's best predator, aren't I? Everything about me invites you in — my voice, my face, even my smell. As if I need any of that!"

"Our relationship couldn’t continue to balance, as it did, on the point of a knife. We would fall off one edge or the other, depending entirely on his decision, or his instincts. My decision was made, made before I’d ever consciously chosen, and I was committed to seeing it through. Because there was nothing more terrifying to me, more excruciating, than the thought of turning away from him. It was an impossibility."