The little given and the great promised

There was in the fiery phantasm a perfection which made my wild delight also perfect, just because the vision was out of reach, with no possibility of attainment to spoil it by the awareness of an appended taboo; indeed, it may well be that the very attraction immaturity has for me lies not so much in the limpidity of pure young forbidden fairy child beauty as in the security of a situation where infinite perfections fill the gap between the little given and the great promised - the great rosegray never-to-be-had.

p. 289, Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, Aug/Sept. 2010

Scent of soul

I wanted to put a hand on her face or on her arm because I thought that if I did that, I would be so happy.  I just wanted to feel her skin but of course I wanted to feel the muscle beneath her skin and I wanted to get at the soul underneath that muscle because I could smell it.  I had never gotten a whiff of Bradley's soul and at that moment...I had a flash that I never would...But at that table I could smell her soul and I wanted it.

p. 39, The Feast of Love, Charles Baxter, Sept. 2010

Love

That was the night Agostino Vespucci fell in love for the first time, and understood that adoration was a journey too, that however determined he might be not to leave his native city he was doomed like all his footloose friends to walk down roads he did not know, the heart's pathways that would oblige him to enter places of danger, confront demons and dragons, and run the risk of losing not only his life but his soul as well.

p. 156, The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie, Nov/Dec 2010