“When they're together, it's like putting a hurricane and a tornado in the same room - you can feel the tension. I didn't believe in the cliche of soul mates until I saw them together.”

“I seem to know all the cliches, but not how to put them together in a believable way. Or else these stories are terrible and grandiose precisely because all the cliches intertwine in an unrealistic way and you can't disentangle them. But when you actually live a cliche, it feels brand new, and you are unashamed.”

“But will they be together again? If they're reborn as new people with no memory of their previous lives, how can they find each other?""Soul mates will always find each other. Do not weep on their behalf...they will be together again.""Do you promise?" Lina's voice trembled with emotion."I promise, sweet one. I promise.”

“Soul mates are said to be two souls destined to be together, programmed to recognize each other across time and space. I didn’t know whether that was the truth, but I was inclined to believe it”

“And when I look at a history book and think of the imaginative effort it has taken to squeeze this oozing world between two boards and typeset, I am astonished. Perhaps the event has an unassailable truth. God saw it. God knows. But I am not God. And so when someone tells me what they heard or saw, I believe them, and I believe their friend who also saw, but not in the same way, and I can put these accounts together and I will not have a seamless wonder but a sandwich laced with mustard of my own.”

“But there’s something about you two, when you’re together. It’s like you fit.” He grins. Shrugs. “He’s your soul mate.”