To joke in the face of danger is the supreme politeness, a delicate refusal to cast oneself as a tragic hero.

Your name hangs in my heart like a bell's tongue.

A kiss is a rosy dot placed on the "i" in loving.

A large nose is in fact the sign of an affable man, good, courteous, witty, liberal, courageous, such as I am.

Speak to me...be eloquent, be brilliant for me. Improvise! Rhapsodize!... I ask for cream and you give me milk and water... Please gather your dreams together into words. - Roxanne, Cyrano de Bergerac

And what is a kiss, specifically? A pledge properly sealed, a promise seasoned to taste, a vow stamped with the immediacy of a lip, a rosy circle drawn around the verb 'to love.' A kiss is a message too intimate for the ear, infinity captured in the bee's brief visit to a flower, secular communication with an aftertaste of heaven, the pulse rising from the heart to utter its name on a lover's lip: 'Forever.

A kiss, when all is said, what is it? A rosy dot placed on the 'I' in loving; Tis a secret told to the mouth instead of to the ear.