“Wasn't that what all stories said?You felt it, like a pang in your heart, when something was happening to someone you love”

“The Consul felt a pang. Ah, to have a horse, and gallop away, singing, to someone you loved perhaps, into the heart of all the simplicity and peace in the world; was that not like the opportunity afforded man by life itself? Of course not. Still, just for a moment, it had seemed that it was.”

“What happens when someone breaks your heart? When someone breaks your heart, first you are shocked. Someone will say you are heartbroken and you examine the words break and heart and heartbroken and you immediately decide that it's inaccurate. You feel pain in the region of your heart and you think it's your heart breaking but one's heart doesn't really break, something else does - faith. You stop believing.”

“When someone loves you it's like having a blanket all round your heart...”

“...It felt like they were telling each other secrets. Everything they said felt like that—whispered, tender, full of other meanings, like when you tell someone a dream or talk about your astrological signs as code for all the things you love about each other.”

“To do something for someone or something you loved- England or Shakespeare or a dog or the Hodbins or history- wasn't a sacrifice at all. Even if it cost you your freedom, your life, your youth.”