“You said you loved me, is that now in the past tense?" "No, it's not." "Good.”

“Oh, God, Alaska, I love you. I love you,' and the Colonel whispered, 'I'm so sorry, Pudge. I know you did,' and I said, 'No. Not past tense.”

“I love you present tense. It's okay, Gus. It's okay. It is. It's okay, you hear me? Okay, okay.”

“...I begin with songs. They provide a sort of skeleton grammar for me to flesh out. Songs of longing for future tense, songs of regret for past tense, and songs of love for present tense.”

“Let me clarify something for you, Damon. There is the simplepresent tense, which is used to describe things that take place in thepresent, simple past tense that describes things that occurred in thepast. And then there is the tense that is used to describe the chancessomething has to happening. You should know about it, you justused it. It is called the simply impossible tense.”

“And yet another moral occurs to me now: Make love when you can. It's good for you.”