“What's a kiss? The sound loneliness makes when it dies.”

“When we finished the kiss she said laughing, I can taste your loneliness - it tastes like vinegar. That annoyed me. Everyone knows loneliness tastes like cold potato soup.”

“She knows that loneliness can kill people - in different ways can actually make you die. (68)”

“It was a kiss born of thunderstorms and the wild loneliness of the night. It was hot, fierce, and needy.”

“["What happens to people when they die?"When she heard that, her grandmother made a sound that was not like a voice but a moan. And with a deep breath, she replied, "I don't know. To tell you the truth, I've never died."]”

“For I'm afraid of loneliness; shiveringly, terribly afraid. I don't mean the ordinary physical loneliness, for here I am, deliberately travelled away from London to get to it, to its spaciousness and healing. I mean that awful loneliness of spirit that is the ultimate tragedy of life. When you've got to that, really reached it, without hope, without escape, you die. You just can't bear it, and you die.”