It was as if they had leapt over the arduous cavalry of conjugal life and gone straight to the heart of love. They were together in silence like an old married couple wary of life, beyond the pitfalls of passion, beyond the brutal mockery of hope and the phantoms of disillusion: beyond love. For they had lived together long enough to know that love was always love, anytime and anyplace, but it was more solid the closer it came to death.

Shame has poor memory.

The truth is that the first changes are so slow they pass almost unnoticed, and you go on seeing yourself as you always were, from the inside, but others observe you from the outside.

He always considered death an unavoidable professional hazard.

He is ugly and sad, but he is all love.

Music is important for one's health.

For a week I did not take off my mechanic's coverall day or night I did not bathe or shave or brush my teeth because love taught me too late that you groom yourself for someone you dress and perfume yourself for someone and I'd never had anyone to do that for.