Great love, you believe, carries the seeds of great sorrow. Well, perhaps you are right. Perhaps the wise spurn one to remain safe from the other, but I should rather choose to have my eyes burnt in their sockets than to have been born without.

I am sorry I didn’t tell you the truth before. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. You kept asking about Romeo and what he was really like. I was hoping that”—he smiled wistfully—“you would recognize me.

Perhaps. But the firstborn of hope is tragedy.

A novel is, hopefully, the starting point of a conversation, one in which the author engages readers and asks that they see things from a different point of view than they might otherwise.

Romeo was cute …” “Cute?” Alessandro rolled his eyes. “What kind of man is cute?” “… and an excellent dancer …” “Romeo had feet of lead! He said so himself!” “… but most importantly,” I concluded, “he had nice hands!

When the old men fight, the young people die.

We are all cups, and our destiny is poured according to measures we cannot understand, cannot influence.