“He knew these last lines by heart and mouthed them now in the darkness. My reason for life. Not living, but life. That was the touch. And she was his reason for life, and why he must survive.”

“...we ask: Why suicide? We search for reasons, causes, and so on.... We follow the course of the life he has now so suddenly terminated as far back as we can. For days we are preoccupied with the question: Why suicide? We recollect details. And yet we must say that everything in the suicide's life- for now we know that all his life he was a suicide, led a suicide's existence- is part of the cause, the reason, for his suicide.”

“Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”

“If there was a hell beyond what he knew, he would welcome it. He had no reason not to.After all, a life without living was simply a death without dying. What more was there to fear or hate but life, endless life, with no respite?”

“I’d do anything for you.” And she knew he meant it. “Even before you healed me, you gave my life back, a reason for living. I adore you, I worship you. I love you beyond all reason.”

“Now he knew that any memories he might cherish during the last years of his life would be only fictions from a biography he'd never lived.”