Fiction was invented the day Jonas arrived home and told his wife that he was three days late because he had been swallowed by a whale.

Over the years they both reached the same wise conclusion by different paths: it was not possible to live together in any other way, or love in any other way, and nothing in this world was more difficult than love.

When I wake up," he said, "remind me that I'm going to marry her.

They were so close to each other that they preferred death to separation.

If you love something - let. If it is yours - it will come back. I love you not because of who you are, but for who I am when I'm with you.

Sex is the consolation you have when you can't have love.

Then he knew that they had rounded the cape of good hope, and he took her large, soft hand again and covered it with forlorn little kisses, first the hard metacarpus, the long, discerning fingers, the diaphanous nails, and then the hieroglyphics of her destiny on her perspiring palm.