“He was jealous of her future, and she of his past.”

“There ain't a man in the world cares about a woman's past until he's thinking of her in his future.”

“She tasted of salvation and damnation at once. No woman had ever lured him to forget who he was…forget his past, his future, and fill him with the need to have her no matter the cost to his soul.”

“Back at home, after some prodding from Tereza, he admitted that he had been jealous watching her dance with a colleague of his. "You mean you were really jealous?" she asked him ten times or more, incredulously, as though someone had just informed her she had been awarded a Nobel Peace prize. Then she put her arm around his waist and began dancing across the room. The step she used was not the one she had shown off in the bar. It was more like a village polka, a wild romp that sent her legs flying in the air and her torso bounding all over the room, with Tomas in tow. Before long, unfortunately, she bagan to be jealous herself, and Tomas saw her jealously not as a Nobel Prize, but as a burden, a burden he would be saddled with until not long before his death.”

“Jealous?' Luce asked. They were alone now. She threw her arms around his broad shoulders and looked deep into his violet eyes. 'Why would you be jealous?''Because,' he said, rubbing his hands across her back. 'Your dance card is full. For all eternity.”

“Her past is behind her, her future is of little concern. She moves towards the grave, at her own speed.”