“The paper, the stapler, the staples, the tape. It makes me sick. Physical things. Forty years of loving someone becomes staples and tape.”

“She took the posters downtown that afternoon. She filled a rolling suitcase with them ... she took a stapler. And a box of staples. And hope. I think of those things. The paper, the stapler, the staples, the tape, the hope. It makes me sick. Physical things. Forty years of loving someone becomes staples and hop.”

“In the past seven years of love-making he had heard the words "I love you" so many times:from the mouths of widows and children, from prostitutes, family friends, travelers, and adulterous wives. Women said "I love you" without his ever speaking. "The more you love someone," he came to think, "the harder it is to tell them." It surprised him that strangers didn't stop each other on the street to say "I love you".”

“He was not such a special person. He loved to read very much, and also to write. He was a poet, and he exhibited me many of his poems. I remember many of them. They were silly, you could say, and about love. He was always in his room writing those things, and never with people. I used to tell him, What good is all that love doing on paper? I said, Let love write on you for a little. But he was so stubborn. Or perhaps he was only timid.”

“When I got off the plane, after eleven hours of travel and forty years away, the man took my passport and asked me the purpose of my visit, I wrote in my daybook, "To mourn," and then, "To mourn try to live," he gave me a look and asked if I would consider that business or pleasure, I wrote, "Neither." "For how long do you plan to mourn and try to live?" "For as long as I can." "Are we talking about a weekend or a year?" I didn't write anything. The man said, "Next.”

“He was sculpting me. He was trying to make me so he could fall in love with me ..”

“What about a device that knew everyone you knew? So when an ambulance went down the street, a big sign on the roof could flashDON’T WORRY! DON’T WORRY!if the sick person’s device didn’t detect the device of someone he knew nearby. And if the device did detect the device of someone he knew, the ambulance could flash the name of the person in the ambulance, and eitherIT’S NOTHING MAJOR! IT’S NOTHING MAJOR!Or, if it was something major,IT’S MAJOR! IT’S MAJOR!And maybe you could rate the people you knew by how much you loved them, so if the person in the ambulance detected the device of the person he loved the most, or the person who loved him the most, and the person in the ambulance was really badly hurt, and might even die, the ambulance could flashGOODBYE! I LOVE YOU! GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU!One thing that’s nice to think about is someone who was the first person on lot’s of people’s lists, so that when he was dying, and his ambulance went down the streets to the hospital, the whole time it would flashGOODBYE! I LOVE YOU! GOODBYE! I LOVE YOU!”