“I took a kind of ex-boyfriend initiative. I guess I wanted to know whether the past was still breathing inside of us. Because inasmuch as I had been irrelevant to their destiny for such a long time, I felt they had become irrelevant to my life for too many years. Unconsciously, something inside me rejected this notion and wanted to make it right.”

“I wasn't in love with her. And she didn't love me. For me the question of love was irrelevant. What I sought was the sense of being tossed about by some raging, savage force, in the midst of which lay something absolutely crucial. I had no idea what that was. But I wanted to thrust my hand right inside her body and touch it, whatever it was.”

“I wanted to tell him I loved him and I couldn't remember how we met. He had things he wanted to tell me too; I knew by the way his breath hung in the air before us. There were so many things inside us, and it comforted me to think of them there, curled up, content, for the time being, to be hidden”

“Something in my gut twisted so hard that it felt like I was being tickled by an invisible hand, and it took me a moment to realize what it was. Hope. It had been so long since I'd felt it that the sensation was like something living inside me, something wonderful waiting to break free, just like I was.”

“I wondered how many times in my life I had done something just because I wanted to without weighing the consequences.”

“ 'Scent's the thing, right? How you find someone. I've got yours inside me. I could find you whether I wanted to or not. Whether you wanted me to or not.''I'm not lost.''I still found you.' ”