“Is the mask working?" she asked me."How can I tell?""If you can breath, then it's working.”

“Give me another chance," I ask urgently. "I will do anything that you want me to do if you just tell me that we can start again. I know I don't deserve it, but I'm asking anyway. I honestly don't know if I can breathe without you. Please. I love you, Mila. Please tell me we can work it out.”

“She wrote me a letter (Joan,1941) asking,"How can I read it?,Its so hard." I told her to start at the beginning and read as far as you can get until you're lost. Then start again at the beginning and keep working through until you can understand the whole book. And thats what she did”

“Tell me a way you think this can work.""We'll find a way," I tell her."That's not an answer. It's a hope.""Hope's gotten us this far. Not answers.”

“I can tell you that solitudeIs not all exaltation, inner spaceWhere the soul breathes and work can be done.Solitude exposes the nerve,Raises up ghosts.The past, never at rest, flows through it.”

“It doesn't work like that," she said, and I was hoping she would tell me how it did work.Maybe she could see that, because she went on. "Sometimes you're loved because of your weaknesses," she said. "What you can't do is sometimes more compelling than what you can.”