But just remember, life without me would be even more unbearable.

I never changed after that. I sought for nothing in the one great source of change which is humanity. And even in my love and absorption with the beauty of the world, I sought to learn nothing that could be given back to humanity. I drank of the beauty of the world as a vampire drinks. I was satisfied. I was filled to the brim. But I was dead. And I was changeless.

There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world -- its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles. The more you understand, the more you look, the greater is your enjoyment of life and your sense of peace. That's all there is to it. Everything else is fun and games. If an activity is not grounded in "to love" or "to learn" it does not have value.

Then, are you master of us all? You didn't teach her that. Was she supposed to imbibe it from my quiet subservience?

I think all of us ordinary mortals tend to mythologize people as good-looking as you.

We shall live even in this state of living death, we shall love, we shall feel, we shall defy all who would judge and destroy us.

But death we are, and death we've always been.