“Decadence is the total loss of unconsciousness, which is the very basis of life. Could it think, the heart would stop beating.”

“One could not do without repetition in life, like the beating of the heart, but it was also true that the beating of the heart was not all there was to life.”

“He felt like his own heart might stop beating just from acknowledging the concept. The sadness, the sorrow, and the loss, they were living things, funnily enough.”

“When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to suffer the experience of total loss. It was more than that. It was the period in which we suffered more total losses than in all the rest of our life put together.”

“By dint of waiting, he hoped his heart would wear out and stop beating. What other way was there to stop loving someone?”

“When they say "my heart skipped a beat," they're full of crap. Really, what they mean is, your heart sort of stutters and thinks about stopping for a second before it remembers that beating is good for it.”