“She confused him and hindered the flow of his ideas. Self-expression had never seemed at once so desirable and so impossible.”

“The idea is that flowing water never goes stale, so just keep on flowing.”

“Love. It seemed impossible that she could love him, but she was so deep in him there was really nowhere to go but further in. So this is what love was. Uncontrollable. Consuming. But so irresistible you wanted to be consumed.”

“My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them──by which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents.”

“It all seemed so impossible, so difficult after searching for her, not knowing for so long. How many times had his daughter suffered some human sickness, death or heartache over the course of her many lifetimes? How many times had she loved, cried and been without her father when she most needed him most?”

“A thing that had always struck her about the child was that he seemed so collected. She had never seen him cry. And now she realized that his calmness was some instinctive shame of showing his feelings; he hid himself to weep.”