Edward:  "Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars----points of light and reason. . . . And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn't see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything."                           

Bella:   I wanted to believe him. But this was my life without him that he was describing, not the other way around. 
          "Your eyes will adjust," I mumbled.

Edward:  "That's just the problem----they can't."   

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

"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."

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

It was very strange, for I knew we were both in mortal danger. Still, in that instant, I felt well. Whole. I could feel my heart racing in my chest, the blood pulsing hot and fast through my veins again. My lungs filled deep with the sweet scent that came off his skin. It was like there had never been any hole in my chest. I was perfect - not healed, but as if there had been no wound in the first place.

His voice was like honey and velvet. "Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, hath had no power yet upon thy beauty,"  he murmured, and I recognized the line spoken by Romeo in the tomb.

Bella:  "Condition?" My voice went flat. "What condition?"
Edward:  His eyes were cautious---he spoke slowly. "Marry me first."
Bella: I stared at him, waiting. . . . "Okay. What's the punch line?"
Edward:  He sighed. "You're wounding my ego, Bella. I just proposed to you, and you think it's a joke."

In the dead silence, all the details suddenly fell into place for me with a burst of intuition.
Something Edward didn't want me to know.
Something that Jacob wouldn't have kept from me....
It was never going to end, was it?

"Apparently I needed a tank-resistant car to keep me safe. Hilarious." -Bella Swan

"Don't be afraid," I murmured.  "We belong together."
I was abruptly overwhelmed by the truth of my own words.
This moment was so perfect, so right, there was no way to doubt it.
His arms wrapped around me, holding me against him... It felt like every nerve ending in my body was a live wire.
"Forever," he agreed.