“Then I pulled off her boots, desperate to enter our world of touch and skin, trailed fingers, that strange elation of lovemaking where the body of another can lift you from your own mortal flesh and put you at some height above a bed of twisted sheets and tangled limbs, with no way of knowing where one self starts and the other ends.”

“..And if I'm looking for a definition of love then perhaps this is it. That another person can help fill the empty space inside us. Even when they're gone.”

“Certainly a man can be destroyed by the love of a woman, of this much I'm sure. But do you really believe a man can be saved by this love?”

“Don't ever forget where you came from--especially if you don't even know where you are going.”

“The two of you, there's something uncanny about the way you two are with each other. I mean everything--the way you look at each other, the way she relaxes when you put your hand on her back, the way you both seem to know what the other is always thinking, it's always struck me as extraordinary. That's another reason I keep putting marriage off. I know I want something like what you two share, and I'm not sure I've found it yet. I'm not sure I ever will. And with love like that, they say anything's possible, right?”

“Start as you mean to go on.”

“I know. You could never hid anything. Your eyes always gave you away. You had the most wonderful eyes I'd ever seen." She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked discretely at him. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. "I think I loved you more that summer than I ever loved anyone.”