“A sample may taste better than the whole, because it’s meant for a taste test, which is perceptually expected to garner favorable results. This is why I can’t give you all my love. Plus, you don’t have a container big enough to hold all my love.”

“My love may be invisible, but that doesn’t mean you can’t taste it. (It tastes like a sonic boom, only not as bitter).”

“It’s not that I can’t fall in love. It’s really that I can’t help falling in love with too many things all at once. So, you must understand why I can’t distinguish between what’s platonic and what isn’t, because it’s all too much and not enough at the same time.”

“I can give you time and space, but I can’t promise how much. It is physically unbearable to be this close to you and not be able to touch you in all the places I know you like to be touched, and to taste you in all the places I know you like to be tasted. I can’t promise you my restraint will last for long.”

“By Jove, what claptrap! Love can turn to contempt in the blink of an eye. When it sours, believe me, only bitterness and misery remain. Such disappointment spoils all other affection. Whereas mature, reasonable expectations cannot be disappointed, my lady, because they can be fulfilled.” “I will not marry without love, my lord.”“Nor will I pretend to love in order to marry,” he growled in reply. “I won’t spout drivel to stoke your overheated fantasies. If we can rub along, that is enough for me. In return, I will honor you, provide for you and protect you.”   “My father loved my mother deeply, devotedly. He loves her to this day. That is perfect, enduring love.”   “I cannot promise you perfection.”   “It’s not impossible to love with devotion. Swans mate for life, why can’t I?” “Perhaps because you are not an aggressive water fowl with a brain the size of an acorn. You have the option to act as a rational creature and accept that there is no such thing as perfect love in reality.”  “ I will not settle for less.” “By all means, don’t settle, Lady Elizabeth,” Clun said and rudely stood up to leave. “Don’t settle for me. Hold out for a poet. Or more appealing waterfowl for all I care. In the meantime, do not presume to lecture me about the proper basis of marriage, as if you knew better than I.”

“Try my all-you-can-eat vomit soup. Sadly, people don’t want seconds, because they don’t even want firsts. But it tastes great. I tasted it on the way down—and then again on the way up.”