“Condemned and executioner are not coupled in a primitive rite.”

“Whatever the hell I am, I am Me.”

“It's lovely. I hate it.”

“How massively the mountains stand, while low to the ground the sand blows. The sand blows on and on. And then there are no mountains, none at all, the sand has kissed and whispered them away. And still, the sand blows on.”

“Are not all loves secretly the same? A hundred flowers sprung from a single root.”

“I'm not very good at being alive. Sometimes I despair of ever mastering it, getting it right. When I'm old, perhaps.”

“She was what an aristocrat should be, porcelain and silk, unreachable, gracious, untainted by the dust of all this common death.”