“I was inclined to leave love unspoken.”

“Metaphor is awkward, but emotion, by its nature, leaves you no more scalable approach.”

“Fond and protective equals love? I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.”

“Peaches and Cheese”:The vagabond sun winks down through the trees,While lilacs, like memories, waft on the breeze,My friend, I was born for days such as these,To inhale perfume,And cut through the gloom,And feast like a king upon peaches and cheese!I’ll travel this wide world and go where I please,Can’t stop my wand’ring, it’s like a disease.My only regret as I cross the high seas:What I leave behind,Though I hope to find,My own golden city of peaches and cheese!”

“A feeling rose in me, and I just let it, because what harm could it do? It only had another thirty-two adagio bars of life in this world. Twenty-four. Sixteen. Eight more bars in which I love you. Three. Two. One.”

“For a fleeting instant, in the sad curve of his shoulders, I saw what Comonot could not: the core of decency; the weight he had carried so long; the endless struggle to do right in the wake of this irreversible wrong; the grieving husband and frightened father; the author of all those love songs. For the first time, I understood.”

“Who will kiss you? Who will rock you to sleep?" His voice was slow, drowsy."You never did," I said, trying to tease him. "You were more father to me than my father, but you never did that.""Someone should. Someone should love you. I will bite him if he will not.”