There were certain qualities you possessed carelessly. And you couldn't retrieve them when they were gone. The very act of caring made them impossible to regain.

I allowed myself to suffer how jarringly destructive the present feels and how fragile the past.

But certain souls cohere. It's rare but possible. But it takes two powerful wills to make it so.

I killed her once and died for her many times and I still have nothing to show for it. I always search for her ; I always remember her. I carry the hope that someday she will remember me.

Developing characters is a strange thing. In the beginning they are abstract and I wonder how to move on from there.

Once Paul told her that the beach was like him because it changed every day but it never made any progress. Later she remembered thinking that a normal person might have begun by saying that he was like the beach.

Knowing where she was in the world, even if he never touched her, gave him a deep satisfaction, and he half despised himself for being satisfied with so little.