“...people liking you or not liking you is an accident and is to do with them and not you. That goes for love too, only more so.”

“Love . . . is like nature, but in reverse; first it fruits, then it flowers, then it seems to wither, then it goes deep, deep down into its burrow, where no one sees it, where it is lost from sight, and ultimately people die with that secret buried inside their souls.”

“She said the reason that love is so painful is that it always amounts to two people wanting more than two people can give.”

“Oh dark woman With a shawl and ribsI could have served him betterWith my shanties.But men do love the shimmerAnd so his ghostIs hacked in half between usThe dark me and the dark you.”

“We all leave one another. We die, we change - it's mostly change - we outgrow our best friends; but even if I do leave you, I will have passed on to you something of myself; you will be a different person because of knowing me; it's inescapable...”

“Cities, in many ways, are the best repositories for a love affair. You are in a forest or a cornfield, you are walking by the seashore, footprint after footprint of trodden sand, and somehow the kiss or the spoken covenant gets lost in the vastness and indifference of nature. In a city there are places to remind us of what has been.”

“After that dark woman you search for someone who will fit into the irregular corners of your heart.”