“...being with you was so easy and natural - there was no strain - I never had to guard my words...”

“I felt so weak and unhappy that I buried my face in the ground: I could not bear the strain of seeing around me the things of the earth. I felt convinced that every movement and every thought was forced, and that one had to be on one's guard against them.”

“Interacting with other people does not come naturally to me; it is a strain and requires effort, and since it does not come naturally I feel like I am not really myself when I make that effort. I feel fairly comfortable with my family, but even with them I sometimes feel the strain of not being alone.”

“I can't be easy. It's not my nature. But it's my nature to love you.”

“Then we were quiet. Quiet isn’t easy. Especially with virtual strangers. They say that nature hates a vacuum, and so it’s kind of natural to want to fill up a human silence with words—any kind of lame words. But there was such a feeling of space around us that my first self-conscious word died long before I ever felt it on my tongue.”

“So I take it you guys are going to stay inside my flat and not out in the hallway like my father’s guards? (Kiara)You know that’s the most pathetic way to guard someone. (In a falsetto he added.) Please protect my life by being outside so that when they come in and kill me you can’t hear it. (Syn)”