“But that afternoon he asked himself, with his infinite capacity for illusion, if such pitiless indifference might not be a subterfuge for hiding the torments of love.”

“But he could not renounce his infinite capacity for illusion at the very moment he needed it most... he saw fireflies where there were none.”

“He said to himself, that he hated Margaret, but a wild, sharp sensation of love cleft his dull, thunderous feeling like lightning, even as he shaped the words expressive of hatred. His greatest comfort was in hugging his torment; and in feeling, as he had indeed said to her, that though she might despise him, contemn him, treat him with her proud sovereign indifference, he did not change one whit. She could not make him change. He loved her, and would love her; and defy her, and this miserable bodily pain.”

“When his grandchildren had been little, they had asked if they could hide inside the clock. Now he wanted to gather them and open himself up and hide them among his ribs and faintly ticking heart.”

“I loved his enormous aptitude for compassion, adoration and respect. That was his way of showing love. He lacked the capacity for wickedness, and that caressed my belief that he might just be an angel. My angel.”

“Day by day, the constant solitude drove him deeper inside himself, with only his thoughts for companions. Soon he might lose the capacity for social intercourse altogether. The possibility of such an eventuality brought him to his feet”