“Even if you slept with every man on Earth, my love will still survive.”

“You . . .’ I whispered, ‘are worth every moment I have left on this earth. Even if I have to love you from afar for the rest of my days.’Lenah to Rhode-”

“Love a man, even in his sin, for that love is a likeness of the divine love, and is the summit of love on earth.”

“What keeps earth air breathable? Not oxygen alone. The earth is a freer place to breathe in, every time you love without calculating a return -- every time you make your drudgeries and routines still more inefficient by stopping to experience the shock of beauty wherever it unpredictably flickers.”

“On their sofas of spice and feathers, the concubines also slept fretfully. In those days the Earth was still flat, and people dreamed often of falling over edges.”

“I loved him and I would love him until every fibre in my body was gone and had turned to dust, but even when my bones had joined the earth, the memory of our love would live on beyond the ages.”