“In the throes of passion, I threw out an I love you. Did I mean it? Does a dictionary mean what it says?”

“When I say something, I mean what I say, despite what a dictionary says I mean. Meanings of words are slaves that I put to work constructing my pyramids of thought.”

“I want to know what it means to be in love. But in my dictionary 'in love' is indefinable.”

“Sex," I ask her. "What does it mean?""Poor you," She say's. "You really did get a crap shag, didn't you?”

“He’d wanted all of me and that’s what I’d given him. Did it mean I had nothing left? “No,” he muttered, voice thick with passion. “You have me, and I love you.”

“Jacopo, while I could still read, during these past months, I read dictionaries, I studied histories of words, to understand what was happening in my body. I studied like a rabbi. Have you ever reflected that the linguistic term `metathesis' is similar to the oncological term `metastasis'? What is the metathesis? Instead of `clasp' one says `claps.' Instead of `beloved' one says `bevoled.' It's the temurah. The dictionary says that metathesis means the transposition or interchange, while metastasis indicates the change and shifting. How stupid dictionaries are! The root is the same. Either it's the verb metatithemi or the verb methistemi. Metatithemi means I interpose, I shift, I transfer, I substitute, I abrogate a law, I change a meaning. And methistemi? It's the same thing: I move, I transform, I transpose, I switch cliches, I take leave of my senses. And as we sought secret meanings beyond the letter, we all took leave of our senses. And so did my cells, obediently, dutifully. That's why I'm dying, Jacopo, and you know it.”