“Think crucial hanging.Think crayon orange.There is one low, leaningheart-shaped globe leftand dearest, can youtell, I am tryingto love you less.”

“If I've ever made you feel less than crucial to my life, Iapologize. Because you are important to me. Actually important doesn't even cover it. You arefundamental to who I am. There is no Daniel Lowe without Rachel Bradfield.”

“I asked if I could draw on her face, because not only was her head globe-shaped, but her nose was shaped like Italy. My love knows no boundaries.”

“without you, dearest dearest I couldn't see or hear or feel or think - or live - I love you so and I'm never in all our lives going to let us be apart another night.”

“Then there came a faraway, booming voice like a low, clear bell. It came from the center of the bowl and down the great sides to the ground and then bounced toward her eagerly. 'You see I am fate,' it shouted, 'and stronger than your puny plans; and I am how-things-turn-out and I am different from your little dreams, and I am the flight of time and the end of beauty and unfulfilled desire; all the accidents and imperceptions and the little minutes that shape the crucial hours are mine. I am the exception that proves no rules, the limits of your control, the condiment in the dish of life.”

“Now I am beginning to live a little and feel less like a sick oyster at low tide.”