My favorite quote from Leopards Blood is found on page 232: Joshua talking to Sonia “…I will love you better than any other man ever would…I’ll stand with you. Good or bad, I’ll stand with you.

I realized I love him just as much or more than I did four years ago. That I'm never live with him" She raised her head to look at her sisters with haunted eyes. "And I don't know if I can live without him.

If what he said was the truth, it broke her heart. If what he said was a lie, it was broken anyway.

-Mikhail?...Try making suggestions next time, or just plain asking. You go do whatever it is you're doing, and I'll go search you extensive library for a book on manners.
-You will not find it.
-Why am I not surprised?

She stared at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were dark, almost black, filled with pain. She'd let someone do that to her. She'd known all along she felt things too deeply. She became attached. She didn't want a lover who could walk away from her, because she could never do that - love someone completely and survive intact if her left her.

I have to figure out why I worked at a job I hated for years. I have to find out why I can’t see what everyone else sees in me. I don’t feel beautiful. When I look in the mirror, I never saw beautiful. For this to happen to someone like me, it’s devastating, Jonas. I don’t want you to think it’s vanity, it isn’t. I can’t see me and I need to be able to do that. I need to find out what I’m like and what I want. I have to be comfortable in my own skin before I can be in a relationship the way you want.