“I feel love for all this, perhaps because I have nothing else to love ... even though nothing truly merits the love of any soul, if, out of sentiment, we must give it, I might as well lavish it on the smallness of an inkwell as on the grand indifference of the stars.”

“I love you,” she says.“I love you,” I say.And then we hang up, because nothing else needs to be said after that.I want to give Zara her life back. Even if I feel I deserve something like this, I don’t deserve it at her expense.”

“But remember this if nothing else: I love you more than there are words or stars. I love you more than there are thoughts and feelings. I love you more than there are seconds or moments gone or to come. I love you.”

“The More Loving OneLooking up at the stars, I know quite wellThat, for all they care, I can go to hell,But on earth indifference is the leastWe have to dread from man or beast.How should we like it were stars to burnWith a passion for us we could not return?If equal affection cannot be,Let the more loving one be me.Admirer as I think I amOf stars that do not give a damn,I cannot, now I see them, sayI missed one terribly all day.Were all stars to disappear or die,I should learn to look at an empty skyAnd feel its total dark sublime,Though this might take me a little time.”

“- Nothing else has any efficacy, I might as well be myself.- But your yourself sucks!- It is, lamentably, all I have.”

“She doesn't speak, but she doesn't have to. I know in these moments, when it's just her and me and nothing else, that she truly, soul-deep loves me.”